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MISS STEWART’S WORKS 


A 


UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. 


CLOISTER LEGENDS ; or, Convents and Monas- 
teries in the Olden Time. i Vol., i 6 mo., 
Cloth, extra, $1.00. 

•‘This is a charming book of tales of the olden time.” — Catholic 
Opinion. 

“The stories in this volume are carefully written, and the graphic de- 
scriptions of scenes and persons, together with the well-wrought plots, 
cannot tail to make them popular with old and young.” — Tablet. 


THE KING AND THE CLOISTER; or Legends 
of the Dissolution. i Vol., i6mo., Cloth, 
extra, $1.00. 

“ At this period, when Protestant and Infidel malevolence, alarmed at 
the progressing Catholic spirit of the age. is manifesting itself as of old in 
Germany, and in England is once more darting forth its aspic tongue at 
the Religious Orders, it may not be thought amiss to present a few pic- 
tures of the Convents and Monasteries at the era of their dissolution, 
throwing the light of modern research on the mass of falsehood, and 
showing that the greed, idleness, and immorality, was not with the Reli- 
gious Orders, but their destroyers— the English Nero, Henry the Eighth, 
and his satellites.”— Extract from the Preface. 


Published by D. < 2 f J. SADLIER & CO. } New York. 


Sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt 
' ' " of the price. 



THE 


People’s Martyr: 

a 

LEGEND OF CANTERBURY. 


BY 

ELIZABETH M. STEWART, 

i • 

AUTHOR OF “CLOISTER LEGENDS; OR, CONVENTS AND MONASTERIES 
IN THE OLDEN TIMES,” ETC. 


“ There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
Dough hew them how, we will** 


NEW YORK : 

D. & J. SADLIER & CO., 31 BARCLAY STREET. 

MONTREAL : 

Corner Notre-Dame and St Francis Xavier Sts. 

i873- 



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PREFACE. 


The theme of the following pages being the 
grand but sombre historic tragedy, presented 
by the life and death of the great martyr of 
Canterbury, THOMAS A’ BECKET, is one upon 
the surpassing interest of which it would be 
superfluous to dwell. 

“ This extraordinary man,” says Dr. Lingard, 
“ has been, since his death, alternately repre- 
sented as a saint and hero, or as a hypocrite 
and traitor, according to the religious bias of 
the historian.” 

The accomplished authoress of the “Lives of 
the Queens of England,” in spite of her strong 
Protestant proclivities, remarks that “the con- 
tests between the Church, and the Saxon, Nor- 
man, or Plantagenet Kings, uniformly having 
reference to the Church property, which was 
the support of the poor, we may easily judge 
with whom the rights of the case lay.” 

It was the cause of the poor then — the cause 
of the people — for which Becket contended 


iv 


Preface. 


with Henry II., and for which he died. He 
was the “ People’s Martyr ! ” 

To delineate this wondrous character, from 
his gay youth to that supreme moment when 
he sprinkled with his life’s blood the altar of 
St. Bennet, in the Church of England’s Apos- 
tle, is no easy task ; but there is no fancy color- 
ing in the portrait : imagination has only sum- 
moned around him such dramatic characters 
and events as those among which he must in- 
evitably have moved. The design of the writer 
has been to blend amusement with instruction, 
and, above all, to show how the mysterious 
working of Providence fails not to extract good 
from evil, and made the moment of Becket’s 
death the triumph of his cause. 

In this hope, then, tnat the volume may be 
found useful for the young, and not unpleasing 
to persons of more mature years, whose avoca- 
tions allow but little time for historical study 
or recreative reading, the author commits to 
the judgment of the public — 


“The People’s Martyr . 3 



CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER L 

The burning Homestead . ' 

CHAPTER II. 

Fifteen Years After . 

CHAPTER III. 

The Baron De Marconville . 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Tournament at Cahors . 

chapter v. 

The Night after the Tournament 

CHAPTER VI. 

A Mote in the Sunbeam . 


PACT 

• • 7 

. . 25 

• . 41 


• • 59 

• • 64 


• • 75 


CHAPTER VII. 

A Cloud in the Distance . . • • .89 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Time's Changes . . . . *97 


vi 


Contents . 


CHAPTER IX. 

The Tiger and the Wolf 

CHAPTER X. 

The Crown and the Crozier . 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Beginning of the End 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Eve of Exile . 

CHAPTER XIII. 

A Mistake .... 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Visitors at Pontingny 

CHAPTER XV. 

Drawing to the End 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Vigil of Sorrow . • 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Dark Day 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Blood at the Altar . 


CHAPTER XIX. 

The Penitent in Palestine 


103 

112 

123 

134 

146 

154 

165 

174 

178 

185 

195 


Appendix 


199 



THE PEOPLE’S MARTYR. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE BURNING HOMESTEAD. 

It was what we sometimes hear called t{ an old 
fashioned Christmas,” by which is to be understood, 
a season of unrelenting severity, with snow on the 
ground varying from two to three feet in depth 
even where it has not drifted, an occasional alter- 
nation of sleet and hail, and above all a bitter wind 
from the north, dashing this snow and sleet with 
pitiless fury in the faces of those who, by business 
or mischance, happened to be travelers. 

It was a very old fashioned Christmas indeed, to 
which we refer, for its date was the year 1153. 

The usurper Stephen, who was as popular as the 
rival claimant of the crown of England, the Em- 
press Matilda, was the contrary, had lately lost his 
eldest son Eustace; and the treaty between him and 
the son of the Empress, afterwards Henry II., which 
secured to Stephen the possession of the crown for 




8 


The People s Martyr . 


his own life, and assumed Henry as his successor, 
was just ratified to the great joy of the people, who 
had been harrassed so long by intestine divisions. 
Nothing indeed could exceed the general distress of 
the nation during the reign of Stephen. The 
barons who headed either his party or that of Ma- 
tilda, were little better than banditti, who took 
advantage of the military tumult and abeyance of 
civil law, to plunder and oppress the nation at 
large. 

The principal causes of these calamities may be 
traced to the castles which covered the face of the 
country. The barons, secure with their walls and 
moats, defied all restraints of justice and law. 
They plundered the lands in the neighborhood, 
carried off the inhabitants, and confined in dun- 
geons the most respectable of their captives. There 
every species of torture was employed, to extort 
from the sufferers an enormous ransom, or discovery 
of the place in which their property was concealed. 
It may be imagined what general joy was the result 
of the treaty of peace between Stephen and Henry 
Plantagenet. 

But the license which had been indulged for so 
many years could not be immediately restrained, 
and a ruthless deed of feudal times was enacted on 
that bitter night of December 1153, on which our 
story opens. 

A party of travelers, journeying from Rochester 
to Canterbury, pressed their horses to the utmost 


The People's Martyr . 


9 


speed, for to be benighted in the coming snow- 
storm was no pleasant prospect in the days when, 
even in fertile Kent, between the towns and vil- 
lages, were scattered open moors and wide tracks of 
woodland. 

They were no rude retainers of any marauding 
baron or knight who rode so late, but persons bear- 
ing respectively the appearance of a substantial 
burgher or tradesman, a franklin, or farmer, the 
officer and vassals of some great monastery, and a 
fourth, whose attire partook equally of the sobriety 
of the cloister and the vanities of the worldling. 

The person in whose garb this contrariety was 
observable was a tall and remarkably handsome 
young man, whose years might have varied from 
eighteen to twenty, and beneath whose monastie 
cloak of black serge, as its heavy folds flapped 
aside in the wind, which blew persistently in the 
faces of the travelers, gleamed the gold embroidery 
of a tunic of scarlet cloth, to say nothing of a richly 
ornamented girdle, which supported the unchurch- 
man like appendage of a dagger and a broad short 
Saxon sword, the hilts of both those weapons being 
of chased silver. On his head, too, the youth wore 
a handsome fur cap, twisted with a gold chain. 

Though the monk, who was clothed in the Bene- 
dictine habit, and with his cowl drawn close over his 
face, was the ostensible chief of the party, its con- 
duct really was instructed to the young man we have 
described, who, in the falling light of the winter 


10 


The People's Martyr. 


day, might have been noted for his gallant and 
active bearing, and the cheery spirit with which he 
supported his fellow-travelers, two of whom, the 
burgher and the franklin, grumbled sorely at the 
distance which lay between them and the city of 
Canterbury, and the imminent chance of the whole 
party, as they said, perishing ia the snow-storm. 

This burgher was a portly, rosy-gilled Saxon, 
who might have sat for the portrait of a London 
Alderman of any eara, simply changing his gown 
and voluminous mantle of dark brown cloth, for 
the costume of any other and more modern period. 

The appearance of the franklin also gave war- 
rant of his degree. He was a tall, well-built man, 
with bright honest blue eyes, and that tinge of red 
in his hair and beard which suggested a few drops 
of Danish blood in his veins. 

The other two persons who made up the party 
were lay servants or vassals of the Benedictine mon- 
astery of St. Augustine, Canterbury, in which the 
monk, who was the head of the party of travelers, 
held the office of cellarer, or butler, or house- 
steward, whose duty it was to supply the meat and 
drink, not only for the community, but for all 
guests, travelers, or strangers applying for the hos- 
pitality of the abbey. It was in discharge of this 
duty that the reverend father was traveling on that 
winter night, and the sumpter mules, driven by the 
servants of the abbey, were laden with a load of 
good things, to rejoice the hearts of the faithful 


The People s Martyr. 


II 


children of the Church during the octave of the 
great festival, for Christmas was kept right merrily 
in those olden times. 

Meantime the wind continued to howl over the 
open moor which the party was crossing; not a star 
glimmered in the leaden sky; and the light drifts 
of snow, mingled with sleet, which had occasionally 
drifted athwart the darkened landscape, now fell 
thicker and faster,* and hung like a white veil be- 
tween the earth and sky. 

Father Osmond, the caterer, had hitherto borne 
in silence with the grumblings and regrets of the 
burgher of Canterbury, Master Flintoft, that he 
had not abode with his brother in London for the 
Christmas holidays, or that he had not staid at 
Rochester that forenoon; and who was worried 
with apprehensions, that converted every straggling 
bush or sapling that extended its bare leafless limbs 
athwart the way, into some marauding soldieis in 
search for booty, and every roar of the wind into 
the tramp of horsemen animated by the same lauda- 
ble intent. Father Osmond, we say, had hitherto 
borne in silence with the fretful burgher; but now, 
as the wind increased to a blast, and the fury of 
which the riders bent, in the steeds could scarce 
keep their footing, the reverend father drew the 
reins of his well-fed mule, and, addressing the 
burgher, said: 

« I pray you, Master Flintoft, do not aggravate 
the disagreeables of our journey by these useless 


12 


The People s Martyr. 


murmurs and unnecessary fears; the wildest of 
freebooters will scarce choose such a night as this 
to waylay chance travelers, for a snow-drift is as 
perilous to a thief as to an honest man; and for 
ourselves, we are as much at the mercy of God on 
this wild moor as in the gardens of a palace on a 
summer-day.” 

“That is true, good father,” interposed the frank- 
lin. “Yet I would, with Our Lady’s grace, that 
we had some shelter wrought of man over our heads, 
were it but that of mine own smallest barn, for in 
truth it is a sad rough night to pass either in the 
tangled wood or on the open wold. Our horses, 
poor creatures, are aware of their danger; mark how 
they tremble and fear to advance on this snow- 
covered moor, which abounds in ponds and pitfalls. 

“ By my patron, Saint Thomas, thou art right, 
Giles Franklin! ” said the young rider, who, from his 
garb, appeared to be half churchman and half lay- 
man; “ the roof of the small barn would be a right 
comforting, shelter from this bitter sky; but, if I 
mistake not: there is a somewhat better abiding 
place than a barn, which we may presently reach, 
namely, a little homestead on the borders of yonder 
wood. I knew the dame who dwells there years 
agone, when she was a servant in the house of my 
worthy father Gilbert.” 

“And whom thou hast well supplied with com- 
forts for her old age, my son,” said Father Osmond. 
“In sooth, thy kindly deed shall stand us all in 


The People s Martyr. 


13 

good stead, if thou canst guide us thither through 
this blinding sheet of snow.” 

“Why, father,” said the youth laughing, “I 
could find my way to good Edith’s cottage blind- 
fold, and so I think can Grey Bertram here,” he 
continued, patting the neck of his horse; “the snow 
has not yet drifted much in the skirts of the cop- 
pice, and at its southern boundary is Edith’s dwell- 
ing.” 

“ Lead on then, we follow thee! ” answered Fath- 
er Osmond. “Of a truth, Becket, whether the 
trouble be small or great, thou art ever at hand to 
help the sore perplexed, whether it be to resist 
rude soldiers with the sword and lance, plunge into 
a frozen lake to rescue a foolish child who had 
ventured on the ice, brush aside the cobwebs from 
the brains of a dull fellow-student, or guide thy 
fellow-travelers, benighted in a snow-storm, to a 
safe shelter.” 

“ Safety and warmth I can at any rate guarantee, 
father,” answered Becket; “though I fear me,” he 
added gaily, “we shall have to attack the burthen 
of our sumpter mules, for the supper which — albeit, 
we are in the fast of Advent — the Church allows to 
weary travelers, as I doubt if good Edith’s larder will 
furnish supper for our company of half-a-dozen liun- 
gry men.” 

As Thomas a Becket spoke thus, he led the way 
towards the wood, but the everhanging boughs — 
the interlacing of which excluded the thickly fall' 

2 


14 


The People s Martyr. 


ing snow — also diminished the feeble light which 
gleamed from the dull grey sky, and it was necessa- 
ry to pause while one of the attendants struck a 
light and kindled the torches with which the 
party, expecting, of course, to be overtaken by 
darkness before they reached Canterbury, were 
provided. 

With the aid of the torches, Becket now guided 
his companions along the skirts of the coppice, 
where the trees were land-marks, which prevented 
their going astray, as they were liable to do on the 
open moor, and where the way was comparatively 
free from snow. 

They had proceeded thus for about half-a-mile, 
when they were startled by a long, wild shriek of 
human anguish, which rose high above the howling 
wind. 

“ Mother of mercy!” ejaculated Osmond, “what 
cry is that; is it some traveler perishing in the 
snow ? ” 

“Perishing by the assassin’s steel, more like,” 
exclaimed the burgher Flintoft. “ I told you, fath- 
er, that the storm would be a cover for the marau- 
der, and not a security against his attack; and 
hark ! there is the beat of horses’ hoofs not far 
off.” 

“ ’Tis on the other side of the wood!” cried Beck- . 
et, dashing impatiently forward; “we hear the 
tramping of the horses on the hard ground, because 
the thick growth of trees keeps out the snow. But 


The People s Martyr. 


15 


that cry was from a woman; and hark! it comes 
again — it is in the direction of poor Edith’s dwell- 
ing! ” 

As the youth spoke, he pressed onwards, closely 
followed by his companions, and they presently 
reached an opening in the woods, where the 
ground declined into a wide glade, lovely in the 
pleasant summer time with its brawling 
rivulet and green turf, and thickets of hazel and 
alder, enclosed and shut in, as it were, from the 
outer world, by the magnificent oaks and beeches 
which Nature’s hand had planted in stately avenues 
on either side of the glade. 

At the head of this glade stood the cottage of the 
woman who had been the faithful nurse of him who 
was destined to leave a mark upon his own time, 
which has not been obliterated by all the chances 
and changes of eight hundred years. 

Generous, ardent, and enthusiastic, the youth of 
Thomas a Becket was the meet precursor of his matu- 
rity. From his bright, brilliant youth even, he was 
essentially the man of the people. In his highest 
worldly prosperity, in his most worldly moments, 
when carried away too much perhaps by worldly 
pomp and power, he was still the generous friend, 
the gracious master, the benefactor of the poor, 
whose bounties were the effusion of a warm and 
noble heart. The steady determination, the keen 
sagacity of the grim stern Anglo-Saxon race from 
whom his father sprung, was mingled in A’Beeket, 


1 6 


The Peoples Martyr. 


with the fervid imagination, the impassioned im- 
pulses of his mother the beautiful Syrian. 

On that night when he guided his friends through 
the snow-laden Kentish woods, when he was a lay- 
man or junior officer in the household of the excel- 
lent Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, the firm 
friend of the first of our Piantagenet kings, he was 
scarcely twenty years of age. 

Skilled already in the arts both of peace and war 
was Thomas a Becket. He had studied in the 
schools of Bologna and Auxerre; he had alike suc- 
cessfully opposed logicians in debate, and warriors 
in the tournament. It was not possible but that 
with him as with all such mighty spirits, there 
must have been a self-consciousness of his sur- 
passing superiority to the mass of mankind, but he 
was too truly great to be overbearing or disdainful, 
and his heart was susceptible of every kindly and 
benevoleut emotion. Can you not imagine how a 
youth of this character loved and revered the sim- 
ple, tender Christian woman, who had supplied to 
him the mother whom he had lost at a very early 
age. 

Nurse Edith was a widow with one sickly little 
boy, when she was engaged to tend on the infant 
son of the prosperous London citizen. This child 
of hers had continued sickly from his infancy, and 
finally fell a victim to consumption, a year before 
the opening of our story. 

The terrible disease was ill understood in those 


17 


The People's Martyr. 

days of iron men and manners, and London was 
pure and healthy, when Snow Hill, and Holborn 
Hill, and the Strand, and fifty other localities, now 
foul with pestilential smoke, were green and pleas- 
ant dwelling places. But the sick foster-brother of 
Thomas a Becket longed for a retreat greener and 
more rural still, and thereupon Thomas had stinted 
himself to purchase the cottage in the Kentish 
woods, with its purling brook, green turf, and leafy 
shades. Three months afterwards, with his hands 
el asped in that of his foster-brother, and his head 
pillowed on his mother’s breast, and the woods 
aglow with the summer sunset, and the woodbine 
and honeysuckle flinging sweet odors on the even- 
ing breeze, the poor youth died, blessing his foster 
brother who had bestowed on him so peaceful and 
fair a dwelling wherein to die. 

When the poor boy was laid to his earthly rest, 
Becket would fain have located the bereaved moth- 
er in some dwelling near to the Archbishop’s pal- 
ace at Canterbury, where he could see her every 
day. But no; dearly as Dame Edith loved her fos- 
ter son, she could not consent to this; for the grave 
of her own boy, the son of her blood, was in the 
churchyard of the village, two miles distant from 
her dwelling, and she could visit it in fine weather 
every day. So there she abode, and seldom a week 
passed, summer or winter, during which she had 
not a visit from her foster son. 

On that winter night, the sound of retreating 


i8 


The People's Martyr. 


horses, of the female shriek that rang out upon the 
bitter wind, filled the mind of Becket with surprise, 
no less than dismay; for in the turbulent times of 
King Stephen, as in our own days of superior civili- 
zation — would, God wot! that we could add supe- 
rior morality — thieves did not break into poor way- 
side cottages where there was nothing to reward 
them for their trouble; and certainly the possess- 
ions of poor lonely Edith could have tempted no 
one. 

What could it be ? Was Edith ill? Was she 
alone ? Was the young girl, whom Becket paid to 
live with her, and assist her in her little household 
cares, by some mischance absent, and what meant 
the sound of horses’ hoofs in a district so lonely? 
But these questions were to be answered in a mode 
of which Becket little dreamed. 

The first of his party he was to spur his horse 
into the glade wherein Edith’s cottage stood. What 
meant that red glare which tinged the descending 
snow-flakes with the hue of blood — that hissing, 
roaring sound that mingled with the low wail of the 
dying gust ? 

“Mother of Mercy!” exclaimed Becket, “the 
cottage is on fire. Oh, good friends! Father Os- 
mond, worthy Master Flintoft, lend me your help!” 

Guided by the light of the blazing thatch, which 
glared through the veil of snow, the companions of 
Becket soon reached the cottage, the door of which 
was held only by a latch, and yielded immediately 


The People s Martyr. 


*9 


to the young man’s eager hand. To his surprise, 
however, no less than to that of his friends, no 
scorching flame or suffocating smoke burst out to 
oppose his entrance. The thatch only was on fire, 
and that, crisp and dry, as it was sheltered from 
damp by the spreading boughs of a gigantic oak, 
blazed like a sheet of parchment, and had already 
penetrated to the beams that roofed the cottage, 
betwixt which the tongues of fire darted, and illum- 
ined the ghastly scene, from which, bold and firm 
as he was, Becket recoiled in sick horror. 

On her own hearthstone, lay poor Edith, dead, 
the blood that flowed from a gaping wound in her 
neck soaking into the whitened brands of the de- 
caying fire, which her hands had kindled. On the 
bed of the nurse lay extended another female form, 
clad in rich garments, and, like that of the nurse 
herself, weltering in blood. Upon the bleeding 
bosom of this woman, and partly encircled by her 
arm, was stretched the yet warm body of a boy, 
about three years of age; on whose fair throat, as 
Becket hastily raised him from his fearful resting- 
place, appeared the blue marks of strangulation. 

“ This fire is no accident — there has been 
foul murder here, and the thatch kindled to 
destroy all traces of the deed! ” exclaimed Becket, 
bitterly. 

“ Doubtless, my son,” answered Father Osmond; 
“ and a few buckets of water would extinguish it, 
if water were at hand.” 


20 


The People s Martyr . 


“There is a brook runs through the garden,” an 
swered Becket, hastily; “and yonder hang the 
buckets with which Edith used to draw the water. 
Oh, poor Edith! hadstthou yielded to my wish, and 
come to me in the good town, this evil chance 
would not have happened! ” 

“Nay, Master Thomas, but perhaps the nurse is 
not dead,” said the franklin Giles; “look to her 
condition, you and good Father Osmond. I’ll war- 
rant, with the help of Michael and Elfric, to put 
out this whiff of flame, which doubtless the villains 
who have wrought this bloody work, must have 
thought would be the means to hide it! ” 

Even while he spoke, the stout yeoman, clutch- 
ing one of the buckets, and rushing out of the 
cottage, with his quarterstaff speedily crushed in 
the ice that covered the surface of the brook, when, 
with the assistance of the abbey servants, he soon 
extinguished the fire, by hurling buckets of water 
on the low roof of the cottage. 

Meantime Becket and Father Osmond, assisted 
by the burgher, Master Flintoft, who, if a grumb- 
ling, was by no means a selfish or ill-natured man, 
addressed their cares to the unfortunate denizens 
of the cottage. 

The nurse was quite dead, but the richly-dressed 
lady, for whose presence in the cottage Becket 
could in no way account, still faintly breathed, as 
did also the child, between whose clenched teeth 
Father Osmond poured a few drops of cordial, 


The People's Martyr. 


21 


from a flask which provident Master Flintoft 
always carried with him on a journey. 

As the fire in the roof was now extinguished, it 
was by rekindling a lamp, which they found over- 
turned on the floor of the cottage, that these hu- 
mane duties were effected. 

When the pale steady light of the lamp fell on 
the features of the wounded lady, an expression of 
astonishment broke from Becket’s lips, and, even 
amid the horror and anxiety of the moment, 
evoked from Father Osmond an inquiry as to 
whether she was known to him. 

“Alas, yes, Father!” answered Becket, with a 
sigh. “She was the only child of a near neighbor 
of my father, the daughter of a widowed mother. 
Some five years since, she disappeared from her 
home. In vain she was sought for, and her mother 
died of a broken heart. Alas, poor Ethel! luckless 
maiden, what sad and sinful mystery has been in 
thy fate! Ah! well I wot how this tragedy has 
been wrought. ’Twas in opening the door of her 
poor cot to thee; it was in extending to thee the 
shelter of her loving arms, that Edith has been 
slain!” 

A convulsive shudder passed over the frame of 
the fair Ethel while Becket spoke; then the waxen 
lids lifted slowly from the large blue eyes, which 
wandered with an anxious eager gaze over the 
faces of those who stood around the poor pallet; 
then they settled on the face of Becket, whom it 


22 


The People's Martyr. 


would seem she recognized. She strove to speak, 
but the blood bubbled from her lips, for her 
wound bled inwardly, and choked the words as she 
gasped them forth. “My boy, my Eustace, does 
he live?” The child was reviving, and the kind- 
hearted burgher had him folded warm in his cloak. 
At a motion from Father Osmond, he showed the 
boy to the dying mother, and in melting mood 
sobbed out his simple consolation: 

“Be of good heart, fair dame; the reverend fa- 
ther here will bind up your hurt; your boy will do 
well. By our Lady’s grace, a fine little fellow! I 
would I had my fingers on the throat of the villain 
who has laid so foul a grasp on an innocent child. 
But be of good heart; my dame will have a care 
of the dear child. And you shall get well, too; 
and, marry, it shall not be a few handfuls of 
bvzants that shall stand in the way of William 
Flintoft’s bringing to justice the murderers who 
have been guilty of this deed.” 

The good-natured burgher stopped suddenly, for 
a shade darker than that caused by the flickering 
of the lamp passed over the lady’s face. 

Master Flintoft knew what the shadow meant. 
He was a man past the prime of life, and he had 
seen it lower on many a beloved face. 

The lady strove to speak again, and this time 
she addressed Thomas a Becket. 

“ Ever generous, good, and forgiving,” she mur- 
mured, “I did not dare face you till I had 


23 


The People’s Martyr. 

first had speech with Edith. Fatal error; had I 
sought you in the palace of our good lord of Can- 
terbury, this bloody deed had been undone! Yet 
the worser half of the usurper’s purpose has failed. 
My boy Eustace lives; to your charge, betrayed 
friend of my days of innocence and peace, do I 
bequeath him. Let not his false uncle profit by 
his crime. High will be the place of my Eustace 
among the baronage of France and England. Woe 
for his father’s pride that would not own he mated 
with an English burgher’s child; but for that mean 
wrong, never had been wrought this direful 
crime. But that shall touch him not, my noble 
boy; he is still the Baron — the rightful Baron of 

______ 5 > 

At this important juncture, when the unhappy 
lady was about to make the revelation of the name 
and lineage of her son, her voice faltered, she 
paused, and the blood that again welled to her lips 
choked her accents. 

She struggled for speech, but her words were in- 
articulate, even to the anxious and strained ear 
which Becket lent to the low moaning, sobbing 
sounds, which the sufferer was alone able to utter; 
then a thought appeared to suggest itself, that she 
would make herself understood by signs, and 
feebly taking her hand to her neck, she held up 
the glittering links of a gold chain; then it fell 
from her nerveless fingers, and a look of inex- 
pressible anguish and misery settled on her 


24 The People's Martyr. 

pale face, as with another vain effort at speech she 
expired. 

Some reliquary or trinket which perhaps the 
poor lady thought might be available to establish 
her son’s identity, had evidently been torn violent- 
ly from the chain, as a fractured piece of delicate 
filagree work clung to the links. 



CHAPTER II. 


y 

FIFTEEN TEARS AFTER. 

Fifteen years! a brief space, even subtracted 
from the brief term of human existence; but there 
are some distinguished mortals whose lives are to 
be reckoned by events rather than years, and who, 
in fifteen, ten, or even five years, live over quad- 
ruple that period in a dull common life. Fifteen 
years have fled since that night of storm and snow 
when Thomas a Becket, in the cottage of the 
Kentish woodland, solemnly vowed over the corpse 
of the murdered companion of his childhood, that 
he would be as a father to her orphan babe — 
of the name even of whose actual parent he was 
ignorant. 

Many a tear of almost filial regret did Becket 
shed over the grave of his foster mother, who, it 
could not be doubted, had fallen a victim to the 
hospitality which had sheltered the unhappy Ethel 
beneath her roof. 

The sense of honor, which was always lively in 
the soul of Becket, and that painful feeling of 
regret which lingers with the memory of the 
broken hopes of our first youth, even to the latest 
a 


2 6 


The People s Martyr. 


period of a long life, prevented Becket entering 
into any particulars of poor Ethel’s story, save 
with his own pious and beloved patron, the Primate 
Theobald. 

In the days of his boyhood and early youth, 
when Thomas a Becket dwelt with the substantial 
citizen, his father Gilbert, in the good city of Lon- 
don, and the fair Ethel v/as as much the boast of 
the city for her beauty and her gentleness, as he 
was for his proficiency in learning, and excellence 
in those manly and chivalrous sports, which in that 
era was rated so highly; in those days Thomas a 
Becket did not think to die unwedded and a 
churchman: the fair Ethel was his betrothed. 

But the tints of the rainbow are not more tran. 
sient than a light woman’s love; a quicksand is as 
firm as her purpose; a handful of thistle down as 
weighty as her resolves. 

Perverse, no less than inconstant, she oftentimes 
prefers the satyr to Hyperion, and rejects good 
sense and manly beauty for folly and sometimes 
actual ugliness. 

The young lawyer, Thomas a Becket, was study- 
ing in the famous school of Bologna. During one 
of the brief intervals of parade and triumph in the 
reign of Stephen, a knight of whom those who told 
the tale to Becket on his return, knew not whether 
he was French or Norman, much distinguished him- 
self at a tournament in Smith field, and was on his 
part so smitten with the charms of the fair Ethel, 


The People's Martyr . 


27 


seated in the gallery appointed to the dames and 
damsels of the city, that he laid the prize — a beau- 
tiful carcanet of pearls — at her feet. Great um- 
brage you may be sure did this act give to the 
court ladies, and much malicious satisfaction was 
there not only for those ladies, but for females of 
her own class, when Ethel subsequently eloped with 
the knight, and was never heard of more. 

Though the great mind of Becket rose superior 
to the pain inflicted by the broken faith of a weak 
woman, and he ceased to love Ethel after she had . 
proved herself so unworthy of his love, the rose 
rudely broken at the stalk was never more twined 
in Becket’s wreath, and he bound his brows in 
future only with the laurels and olive of the warrior 
and the sage. 

Still he was deeply moved by the horrible catas- 
trophe of Ethel’s death, who had passed from his 
thoughts as well as from his affections : but the 
memory of that bygone time could not but return 
most painfully, when the murdered woman besought 
his care and kindness for her child. 

Aided by the influence of the Archbishop, Becket 
employed every effort to discover the perpetrators 
of those atrocious murders, in the list of which the 
perpetrators had evidently intended to comprehend 
the poor child, who it seemed indeed probable was 
the victim they chiefly aimed at. 

Yain, however, were all endeavors to trace out 
the authors of this crime. If, indeed, in these our 


28 


The People s Martyr. 


own days, with the active and numerous band of 
officials, the mighty agency of the press, the perpe- 
trator of some dark deed of murder occasionally 
shrouds himself in a mystery which defeats all ef- 
forts to penetrate, how much more easy to elude de- 
tection must it have been in the stormy twelfth cen- 
tury ? 

The little Eustace, therefore — by that name only 
he was known — grew up under the most affectionate 
care and attention of the great and good man who 
had undertaken on his behalf all the most sacred 
duties of a parent. 

During his years of infancy, he was brought up 
in the house of the kind-hearted wool-stapler of 
Canterbury, Flintoft, whose wife, childless herself, 
lavished the most tender maternal care on the little 
Eustace. His studies, as he advanced in years, were 
pursued in the abbey of St. Augustine. 

Meantime great changes had taken place in the 
fortunes of his protector. 

Stephen was dead. The first of the mighty line 
of Plantagenet was seated on the English throne, a 
prince doubtless of great abilities, but whose char- 
acter was deformed by unrestrained passions, whose 
wisdom descended to cunning, whose prudence to 
avarice, and against whom his most sycophantic ad- 
mirers would in vain attempt to disprove the 
charges of licentiousness, violence, and cruelty, 
«uch as would disgrace a North American savage. 

But Henry the Second, finding that Becket, his 


The People s Martyr. 29 

whilom favorite and friend, would not lend himself 
to the pillage of the Church, which was in fact the 
pillage of ihe poor, prompted, if he did not com- 
mand, the murder of a great Catholic prelate; and 
that is an all-sufficient recommendation to the praise 
of modern British writers, whether it be the infidel 
Deist Hume, or the Whig-Radical Charles Knight, 
whose so-called “ History of England,” if it be really 
“ popular,” as is claimed by the title, will be more 
extensively mischievous than the famed work of 
the elegant and eloquent Deist Hume, as it falls 
into the hands of those who so fatally proved the 
truth of the great didactic poet’s assertion — that 
“A little learning is a. dangerous thing,” — the readers 
of Charles Knight being not persons of general and 
generous information, but clerks, mechanics, and 
shop boys, who simply believe whatever they see 
stated in print, and swallow all the mean and spite- 
ful misrepresentations of the aforesaid pretentious 
and fussy Whig-Radical, as sweetly and smoothly 
as though they were a compound of honey and 
milk. 

Truth, however, is supreme, and will ultimately 
triumph over Whig- Radicalism, and over Atheist- 
Socialism , to which the Whiggery and Radicalism 
are certain guides. 

“ How long, oh Lord, how long! ” Thus might 
the oppressed Church have exclaimed in the days 
of Henry the Second, and Alexander the Third, as * 
in those of Victoria and Pio Nono. But the great 


30 


The People's Martyr. 


struggle between the man of brain , Thomas a 
Becket, and the man of the iron hand , Henry 
Plantagenet, had not commenced fifteen years after 
the opening of our chronicle. 

The amiable and venerable Theobald, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, the fast friend of the Anjou Prince, 
he who had refused to place the crown on the brow 
of Eustace, the son of the usurping Stephen, was 
first in the councils of the Plantagenet when he 
succeeded to the island throne. 

For two years after the succession of Henry, Theo- 
bald retained the first place in the councils of the 
sovereign, but the infirmities of ag£ now pressed hard 
upon him, and on his retirement he recommended 
Thomas a Becket to Henry as a minister whose 
learning and wisdom might guide his experience. 

At this time Becket held the post of archdeacon 
of Canterbury, the highest dignity in the English 
church after the bishoprics and abbeys. 

To this high post, however, Becket had not risen 
unembarrassed by envy and opposition. Roger de 
Pont d’Eveque, who had preceded him in that office, 
which he resigned on his elevation to the See of 
York, early showed himself the rival and deadly 
enemy of Becket, who, by his intrigues, was on two 
occasions temporarily dismissed from the service of 
Archbishop Theobald. At this period of the open- 
ing of our legend, the malice of Becket’s foe was in 
abeyance. Becket stood high in the favor of the 
king, and had been appointed chancellor and pre- 


31 


The People s Martyr . 

ceptor to the young prince. Substantial benefits 
accompanied these honors; he was made warden of 
the Tower of London, custodian of the castle of 
Birkhampstead, and the honor of Eye, with the ser- 
vices of one hundred and fifty knights. 

The splendor of his taste, and the liberality of his 
disposition, made his eminent position a general 
benefit. His table was open to any person who had 
business at court; he took precedence of all the lay 
barons; and among his vassals were numbered 
many knights who had spontaneously done him 
homage with the reservation of their fealty to the 
king. 

Henry, on his part, far from grudging this magni- 
ficence of his favorite, was gratified by it, and lived 
with Becket on terms of the most easy familiarity, 
and seemed to have resigned into his hands the 
government of his dominions both in England and in 
France. It was not merely as a sagacious council- 
lor that Becket was the favored servant of King 
Henry. When occasion demanded, he exhibited 
the valor and wisdom of a great military comman- 
der. When war broke out between Henry and 
Louis, respecting the possession of Thoulouse, 
Becket marched at the head of the army, and was 
foremost in every enterprise. 

It is at this epoch our scene changes, from Ken- 
tish woods, in midwinter, with the knotted boughs 
of the oak and wide-spread branches of the beech, 
laden with snow, to sunny France, to the banks of 


32 


The People s Martyr. 


the Lot, with its swelling hills, purple with vines, 
and covered with the grey olive, its acacias, its 
myrtles, and its orange groves, and dark feudal 
towers of the ancient city of Cahors towering in the 
distance against the dazzling blue sky. 

The fierce heat of the summer-day was past, and 
a light breeze curled the crystal waters of the river, 
and swept the fragrance from the flowering shrubs^ 
when a youth and maiden, who by their apparel ap- 
peared of superior rank, paced slowly along its shel- 
tered banks, in earnest, and, it seemed, somewhat 
sorrowful converse. 

The attire of the youth was that of page in the 
family of some wealthy baron; that of the damsel 
such as befitted the daughter of a person no 
less wealthy and high placed. Her watchet- 
colored kirtle was of the finest wool; her veil, 
of white sendal, was bordered with silver and seed- 
pearls. 

A damsel, the inferior quality of whose dress, 
and whose assured and lively aspect, seemed to 
betoken her the waiting-maid of the other maiden, 
loitered at a little distance from the youthful pair, 
occasionally casting a cautious glance along the 
banks of the river and through the openings in the 
woods. She was evidently more anxious than the 
young people themselves, whose whole thoughts 
were absorbed in what appeared to be a somewhat 
melancholy conference. 

At length she approached them. 


The People's Martyr. 


33 


“Beseech you, my Lady Adeline,” she said; 
“ stand more in under the shade of those acacias, 
or rather, and with more wisdom, finish your dis- 
course with this fair page. The sun is falling on 
the woods, the evening banquet will he served 
anon, and my lord your uncle will raise the wlole 
castle if you are not in your accustomed place. 
That surly, evil-conditioned squire of his, that Gas- 
pard, passed through the courtyard even when I 
was persuading Jacques the warder to let us out at 
the little postern; and the brute scowled at me, as 
is his wont, and growled forth an admonition to 
Jacques about wasting the time which was at the 
service of his lord in gossiping with giglets and 
v waiting-damsels. And, in sooth, I watched him; 
the moment my back was turned, he was question- 
ing Jacques, and, I misdoubt me, threatened the 
good fellow; for I noted that he laid his hand on 
his dagger. Not but what Warder Jacques can 
hold his own, and can stand bluff even against the 
favorite squire. But for all that, the knavish 
churl is as sly as a fox and as fierce as a wolf- 
hound, and, I suspect, has been skulking about, to 
discover if we are out of bounds; and, did he see 
us, ill will it fare with me and Jacques, and not 
much better with you, my lady, and this fair English 
youth!” 

“ If the villain spy dare cross my path,” said the 
page, who was, indeed, that same Eustace, whom, 
as a little infant, some fifteen years before, the 


34 


The People's Martyr . 


generous Becket had taken under his protection; 
“ if he direct word or blow at me, he will learn of 
what metal English youths are made! ” 

“Be hushed, Eustace,” said the noble damsel, 
“ thine honest valor would serve thee nought 
against a cozening knave like this, whose blade, I 
fear me, has tasted more blood in murderous ambus- 
cade than in honorable fight. Grace of our Lady! 
I am a daughter of Couci, and not unworthy, I 
trust me, of the race; yet I own to thee, Eustace, I 
fear that man — fear him as we fear the cunning 
tiger, the crawling venomous snake — and yet doth 
my blood so rebel at this sense of fear, so angered 
am I that I cannot command the knave forth from 
the walls of mine own castle, that I would fain I 
were a son instead of a daughter of Couci! Woe 
with the destiny that made me a poor damsel and 
an heiress to boot, whose hand, forsooth, is to be 
at the disposal of her guardian or her liege lord. 
But, Eustace, you will urge my hard fate on the 
noble Chancellor. St. Agnes, pray for me, who 
am the ward, and am like to be the victim, of 
this fierce bad baron, who, in sooth, hath no title 
to the duty of a niece from me, seeing that he was 
but the husband of mine aunt.” 

“ Whom, old Therese, the butler’s wife, said, his 
savage humor hurried to her grave. May he have 
a long spell in purgatory for that, as well as his 
misdeeds to you, my lady! ” interposed the waiting- 
maid, Marcelline. 


The People's Martyr . 


35 


“ Fie, Marcelline,” said the Lady Adeline; “it 
was but yesterday that Father Philip rebuked you 
for that same evil wish.” 

“Nay, my lady,” answered the waiting-maid, 
pouting. “ I deem, though, that the good father 
held it as no great sin; for he minded me privately 
that such rash words were more foolish even than 
wdcked, and that if they were borne to the Baron’s 
ears, would insure my dismissal from the castle, 
which would needs be a great grief to me, and, he 
opined, some small lessening of comfort to you, my 
lady — that is to say, if you care for the faithful 
service of your poor Marcelline.” 

“ You know I care for you, Marcelline,” replied 
the lady; “my poor wench, thou hast been mine 
only comfort in the solitude to which my perni- 
cious uncle hath condemned me; debarring me 
from all companionship with dames and damsels of 
mine own degree, that — may our Lady protect me, 
an unfortunate maid! — I know not how far I tres- 
pass in a maiden’s modesty in beseeching the aid of 
this youth to lay my hard case before the wise 
Chancellor, that he may obtain grace for me with 
King Henry, in whom, and not in King Louis, I 
regard my superior lord, since this goodly province 
of Guienne was the appanage of Eleanore, the lady 
queen of Henry; and the Baron de Marconville 
holds land under Henry both in Normandy and 
England. In sooth, I fear, Master Eustace, that 
you will hold me an unmannerly maiden, who, be- 


36 The People s Martyr. 

cause thou didst save my life when my refractory 
jennet had thrown me in the river, and my wor- 
shipful uncle stood composedly on the banks to see 
me drown, now further trouble you in behalf of my 
liberty and my lands.” 

With a brightened color, and a little petulance 
of manner, the noble damsel pronounced the last 
words, the tenor of which, you may be sure, the 
gallant page was not slow to depreciate. Indeed, 
it would have required more than the wisdom or 
severity of a bold and generous youth of eighteen, 
to find fault with an artless, beautiful, and wealthy 
young lady asking assistance to free her from the 
bondage of an unjust guardian. The page Eustace 
hastened not only to assure the damseh Adeline de 
Couci of his best offices in laying her sad case 
before the Chancellor Becket, who was then 
resident at Cahors, which town had been taken 
from the French chiefly through Becket’s courage 
and military talent, but ventured to prognosticate 
success, for the Baron de Marconville was in no 
favor with Henry, as he seldom showed him- 
self at the Court, whether held in Normandy or 
England. 

This Baron de Marconville indeed, though he 
had not been wanting in warlike prowess in his 
youth, and when he was a poor wandering knight 
dependent on his own achievements and the gene- 
rosity of his elder brother, had, since he came into 
possession of castles and broad lands both in 


The People s Martyr . 


37 


France and England, demeaned himself more like 
some base usurer, than a knight or a noble, hoard- 
ing gold, and not content with his own large pos- 
sessions, appropriating to himself the revenues of 
the orphan Adeline de Couci, in whose castle and 
at whose cost he maintained a band of fierce re- 
tainers under the command of his favorite Gaspard. 
These men, be it observed, were never employed 
in any honorable achievement, for their lord was 
in the habit of selling their swords, and his own 
into the bargain, to the highest bidder. 

As for his possessions, in England, the chief of 
which consisted in a castle and lands on the coast 
of Kent, he seldom visited them, but maintained at 
Ravenscliffe — so the castle was called — a seneschal 
as rapacious, hard-hearted, and insolent as himself, 
who in his master’s name so oppressed the frank- 
lins and smaller gentry, that there had been more 
than one suit laid against the Baron Hubert de 
Marconville and his agents not only in the lay, but 
the ecclesiastical courts; and in particular the 
Chancellor himself, while yet only Archdeacon of 
Canterbury, had interfered to protect a poor knight 
named Reginald Fitzurse, who held his lands in 
fee of the barony of Ravenscliffe, from the oppres. 
sions of Marconville’s seneschal Le Voisin, who was 
as tyrannical on the part of his absentee master as 
could be any Irish middleman of modern times. 

As the character of the Baron de Marconville 
was already so unfavorably known to Becket, there 


33 


The People s Martyr . 


was but little reason to doubt that he would inter- 
fere actively on behalf of the distressed damsel 
of Couci, upon the representation of even an 
indifferent person, much more that of his beloved 
foster son. 

So the noble damsel and the favorite page of the 
great English warrior parted on the fair summer 
evening on the empurpled banks of the Lot, with 
better cheer than they had met, for in the beginning 
their conference was sadly borne, for Eustace had 
told the lady the sad story of his own infancy, how 
his mother was murdered, and he knew not his 
father’s name! 

“ But it is noble, fair sir! in sooth it must be 
noble! ” urged Adeline, “ or if not, gentle Eustace,” 
she added with a downcast eye and blushing cheek, 
“ thou who hast been taught the duties of chivalry 
in the household of the goodly Lord a Becket, who 
didst so freely risk thy life to save a drowning 
damsel, must be of those whose valiant and gene- 
rous deeds make unto them a noble name! ” 

The youth sighed as he kissed the fair hand of 
Adeline de Couci, and fastened on his arm the blue 
and silver ribbon which she bestowed. He, too, 
thought his father’s name was noble, and longed to 
glorify it more by his own deeds. With the par- 
donable pride of early manhood, he felt bitterly the 
distance which fortune had placed between him, the 
nameless protege of Becket’s bounty, and the rich 
heiress Adeline. ' 


The People's Martyr . 


39 


There was to be a tournament at Cahors on the 
following day, among the fair spectators of which 
De Marconville had consented that his ward should 
appear. At this tournament the warlike Chancel- 
lor was to be in the lists, attended by Eustace, who 
had for late services in the field been promoted 
from the condition of the page to that of an esquire, 
and at the tournament it was agreed that he should 
give Adeline some note of how her cause progressed. 

They parted thus in hope for the future, and 
wholly unconscious that word for word, almost all 
that they had said, had reached the ears of the per- 
nicious villain Gaspard. 

As the young people quitted the vine-covered 
dell, and Adeline in company with her waiting 
damsel took the devions path through the matted 
woods that clothed the sides of the steep hill, from 
the summit of which the grey towers of the castle 
of Couci frowned over the fertile valley and the 
bright river, the stalwart heavy figure of a man 
rose up from the thick tangle of the oleander and 
myrtle, which gay fancy might have suggested as 
a covert for rosy infancy tired with its sports, rather 
than a swart and evil-browed man-at-arms. 

The man stretched his cramped limbs, took off 
his steel cap, and wiped the sweat drops from his 
scowling brow. Then he clenched his muscular 
fist and shook it threateningly at Becket’s protege, 
as, heedless of the spy, with the firm, springy step 
of youth, he trod the open ground in the direction 


40 


The People's Martyr . 


of Cahors, with the gold embroidery of his jerkin 
glittering in the red sunset, and the white feather 
in his cap waving gaily in the wind. 

“ Cunning as a fox, and cruel as a tiger, am I, my 
Lady Adeline !” he growled; “ by the rood, I will 
not belie thy judgment. And for yonder cock 
chicken, we shall see how long he will ruffle his 
plumes against the kite 1” 



CHAPTER III. 


THE BARON DE MAKCONYILLE. 

This grim baron was in an unusually gracious 
mood when his ward appeared at the banquet, 
which was spread in a style of greater abundance 
than was common at the table of the miserly no- 
ble, who grumbled at the appetites of his retainers, 
and had such thin and poor wine served to his 
household, that the men-at-arms would not have 
remained in his service, but that he was fain to pay 
them well out of the large sums which he not only 
filched from the coffers of his ward, but received 
from the greater feudal potentates, in whose quar- 
rels he was always ready to take part for pay. 

Adeline had seldom seen her guardian so jocose; 
but as in this mood he actually relaxed so far as to 
present her with a casket of her own jewels, which 
he had hitherto kept under lock and key, in order 
that, as he said, she might prank it as became her 
high degree, at the tournament, she was well con- 
tent with the effect of his good humor, and inquired 
not for the cause. 

Now, you are to understand that this noble ba- 
ron, though he caused pinched measures and poor 


42 


The People's Martyr. 


wine to be served to his domestic servants, and as 
far as he dared to his military retainers, yet took 
care to have a supply of delicate Muscatel and right 
royal Burgundy for his own drinking. 

It was a custom of those days for a flagon of 
spiced wine, and a plate of comfits or confections 
to be served to persons of high condition in their 
bed- chamber. 

This was a very bad custom, but to the taste of 
the Baron de Marconville, was a very good one, 
and many a villainous plot had he and his myr- 
midon Gaspard concocted over their nightly pota- 
tions, in which the esquire who was too useful for 
his master to play the miser with him, was permit- 
ted to share. 

On that night preceding the tournament at Ca- 
hors, the baron and his satellite held a deep carouse, 
but grim and ghastly was their pleasantry. 

The Baron Hubert de Marconville was pleased 
to affect a mean and slovenly costume, which alone 
would have rendered him unpopular among the 
foppish knights of France. 

Thus, though other nobles in times of peace, 
when the sports of the chase, which divided their 
time with the labors of war, were at an end, were 
accustomed to array themselves for the banquet in 
costly furred robes of fine cloth, tissue, velvet, 
and silk, the rude De Marconville would slouch to 
the head of his board in an old leathern doublet, 
frayed by his corslet, and spotted with grease. 


43 


The People s Martyr. 

The truth was, that De Marconville in some sort 
affected a slovenliness of dress and brutality of de- 
meanour to hide the mortification he could not 
choose but feel at the averted looks and cold de- 
meanor of his fellow nobles, from the time that the 
sudden death of his elder brother made him heir to 
the barony. 

Something eccentric had been the character of 
the Baron Roger de Marconville, the brother of 
this Hubert. For weeks, and sometimes months 
he would absent himself from his castle, and rumor 
whispered of a beautiful leman, with a dainty bow- 
er, on the banks of the Garonne, in whose company 
the Baron Roger disported in those long absences 
from his feudal residence, which he left under the 
command of his brother, who was not a parsimoni- 
ous castellan then. 

After one of these prolonged absences, however, 
the Baron Roger having returned to his castle near 
Thoulouse, fell suddenly ill, of an illness which de- 
fied the power of leechcraft either to account for or 
to cure. 

Jn the dead of a stormy night of early winter, 
that same winter when Thomas a Becket took 
charge of the child of the murdered Ethel, the Ba- 
ron Roger was seized with a paroxysm of his dis- 
ease. In his dying agony he prayed for a confessor, 
but none was at hand; for alas! it was a wild life 
led in the castle of Marconville by the men of crime 
and blood who made up the following of the broth- 


44 


The People s Martyr . 


ers De Marconville, and years had passed since the 
sandalled foot of a man of religion had crossed the 
drawbridge of that feudal dwelling. 

So, as no wise and holy counsellor was to be pro- 
cured, the Baron Roger was fain to put trust in 
his brother a man more wild and dissolute than 
himself, and, summoned to his bedside, Hubert de 
Marconville was made the depository of a secret, 
which report afterwards whispered was none 
other than that the supposed leman of Roger was 
his wife, and that her little son was in fact the heir 
to the lands and title for which Hubert himself 
greedily longed. 

The truth of this matter was never known. Gas- 
pard, who even then was the squire and favor- 
ite of Hubert de Marconville, was despatched to 
England to the castle of Ravenscliffe, of which Le 
Yoisin was seneschal. In the spring of the same 
year, the Baron Hubert, who had taken unopposed 
possession of the lands and castle in France, pro- 
ceeded to England, laid claim to and obtained 
Ravenscliffe; and confirming in his rule the savage 
Le Yoisin, who, like Gaspard, was a man after his 
own heart, he returned to France, where, as Mar- 
celline had truly stated, he killed his own wife by 
a course of ill usage, and secured to himself the 
guardianship of his wealthy orphan niece Adeline 
de Couci. 

Now the tongue of slander was no less active in 
those days than in these; then also, as now, there 


The People's Martyr . 45 

was generally some modicum of truth mixed up 
with a foul report. 

And so the whisper went abroad that the secret 
which the Baron Roger confided to his brother, on 
his death-bed, was no secret at all to him, for that 
he had long before ferreted out the knowledge that 
the supposed leman of Roger was his honorable 
and wronged wife. 

Worse even than this., it was surmised that he 
could have enlightened the leech whose skill could 
not reach the source of the Baron’s illness; yea, 
that it was in truth the result of a corroding and 
slow poison, which this second Cain had adminis- 
tered to his brother. 

But suspicion, however strong, is not proof, and 
science did not appear in the witness box in those 
days. The wrong which Roger de Marconville had 
done his wife and child, was a stone which he cast 
upwards, and which fell upon his own head; for, if 
he died by poison administered by his brother, as- 
suredly it was Hubert’s knowledge of his secret 
marriage that prompted the foul deed. 

Hubert, on his part, defied suspicion, which could 
not topple him from his high place, though he was 
galled by the cold receptions lie met with from men 
of his own degree; for, rude as was the age, such 
deeds of domestic crime created a due amount of 
horror among the great bulk, not only of the peo- 
j>le, but of the Barons themselves. 

And so, as years rolled over, the Baron Hu- 


4 6 


The People s Martyr . 


bert grew more grim and miserly than ever, and 
was prepared to re-enact all his former wickedness, 
at the bare thought of being deprived of its fruits. 

The Baron, who had all along winced under the 
suspicion in the shadow of which he lived, was al_ 
ways fearful lest the light of proof should, at some 
time or other mingle with that shadow. 

He had been anxious of brain and heavy of heart 
ever sincethe day when Eustace had rescued the 
lady Adeline from the waters of the river, in which, 
sooth to say, her caitiff uncle would have been con- 
tent she should drown. 

The visits of De Marconville to England, since 
his brother’s death, had been few and far between, 
and undertaken only to collect the revenues of 
RavensclifFe, or support Le Voisin in his tyranny 
over the franklins and vassals. 

This Marconville was like an unreasoning animal 
in his fits of fury. He stamped, and tore his hair, 
and gnawed his dagger hilt for rage when the news 
reached him that Becket, the Chancellor, headed 
the English troops in the march on Thoulouse. The 
name of the “Saxon lawyer,” the “Church Chan- 
cellor,” as he was wont to term A’Becket, was 
especially distasteful to the brutal Baron since the 
time when, Archdeacon of Canterbury, he defeated 
Le Yoisin’s tyranny over Reginald Fitzurse. 

The Baron had another feud against the Chancel- 
lor now, and, and it was to discuss this feud, and 
plan a dire vengence that he sate so late and drank 


The People s Martyr . 


47 


so deeply with his minion Gaspard the night before 
the tournament at Cahors. The conference of these 
villains could not be carried on in any but the 
Baron’s most private chamber, for the retainers 
of Couci held themselves as much injured as the 
young lady by the usurped authority of Marconville, 
and his own followers in the castle were for the 
most part mere mercenaries, whom he had hired for 
such service as he knew would not be rendered by 
true vassals, either of Couci or Marconville. These 
mercenaries would have sold their own father for a 
handful of byzants, and could they have obtained 
proof of his turpitude, would certainly, for their 
own profit, have betrayed the baron, and brought 
down justice on his crimes, either from King Henry 
or King Louis. 

No, it did not at all square with the designs of 
the Baron to have any other confidant or counsellor 
than his invaluable Gaspard. So, fancy the pre- 
cious pair seated in the baronial chamber, a huge 
flagon of wine, and a pair of chased goblets on the 
table, at which sate De Marconville, leaning his 
chin upon his hand, and, with the light of the lamp 
throwing up as it were the sinister expression of his 
swarthy countenance, with the deep-set black eyes 
glowering like burning coals beneath the shaggy 
brow, contracted by an ominous frown. 

Gaspard meantime prowled about the chamber, 
as if fearful of some concealed witness, sounding 
the wall behind the tapestry, looking within the 


48 


The People s Martyr. 


shadows of the velvet curtains of the bed, opening 
the doors even of a huge cabinet, which might in- 
deed have been converted into a hiding place. The 
patience of the Baron was, however, at last exhausted 
by this caution. 

“Saints and demons!” he exclaimed, fiercely 
striking the table with the hilt of his dagger which 
lay before him, “ art thou making a May game of 
thy master, Gaspard, that thou dost thus dally 
with the news about which thou didst w r ink and 
blink at me over the feast, like an owl in the noon- 
day sun ? Sit thee down, man; we will spare time 
to seek for listeners when thou hast told thy tale. 
I’ll warrant me, two inches of good steel will suffice 
to prevent any traitor carrying it further. What 
is it, speak out, was thy thought correct ? ” 

“ Yerily, my good lord,” answered the retainer, 
who having completed his scrutiny of the chamber, 
drew one of the heavy oaken chairs to the other 
side of the table, and quaffed a goblet of wine be- 
fore he spoke. “Yerily, and in sooth, this brag- 
gart boy, whose chivalry so lately balked your 
honorable lordship of the fee simple of my Lady 
De Couci’s land, is the same brat whom Le Yoisin 
swore he left dead in the cottage of the Kentish 
wood.” 

The Baron started up, uttering a tremendous 
oath; then he resumed his seat, and in a deep set 
tone, but with a calmness that made the purport of 
his words still more terrible and savage, he said; 


The People s Martyr . 49 

u I will summon Le Voisin hither; I will send a 
messenger to summon him to Marconville. He 
longs, he says, to quit that English land of fogs and 
vapor, to bask beneath the radiant skies of our beau- 
tiful France. I will throw him into the deep dun- 
geon beneath the moat, and by the rood he shall 
grumble at the cold English clime no more; for I 
will roast him like St. Laurence, on a gridiron— the 
perjured caitiff; the coward, lying slave! ” 

Favorite as Gaspard was with his master, the 
willing sharer in his misdeeds, and largely partak- 
ing in their profits, he nevertheless hated him with 
a cold calculating, sullen hate, to which he permit- 
ted no vent, save in aggravating, and at the same 
time mocking and sneering at his crimes whenever 
their fell object failed of attainment. 

So now, while De Marconville sat with arms 
folded, compressed lips, and a heart heaving with 
suppressed fury, the retainer, in a quiet, but gibing 
tone, inquired: 

“ Would it not better serve the purpose of your 
chivalric worship, to let me finish the job which Le 
Voisin blundered ever so many years agone, and 
strangle this dog whelp, whom I recognised by the 
birth-mark of the arrow on his dainty white neck, 
when he drew my young Lady Adeline from the 
river.” 

« My faithful Gaspard,” returned the baron, un- 
heeding the taunting tone by which he was usually 
exasperated, in the fury and dismay of the moment. 


5 ° 


The People's Martyr . 


“My faithful Gaspard, would that I could avail my- 
self of this offer; but I cannot — dare not. The boy 
is under the guardage of the Chancellor a Becket, 
who holds him dear almost as a son.” 

“ In sooth does he, and I deem, my Lord Hubert, 
I know that better than thyself; for from my am- 
bush among the vine, I heard the boy tell his story 
to my Lady Adeline. By the Mass, it was a tale 
for a troubadour, just suited for a lady’s fancy, and 
one which, told by a gallant youth, with bright 
eyes and golden locks, and a chiming silver tongue, 
would charm the heart out of the breast of a less 
fanciful and romantic damsel than my Lady Adeline. 
It was then when I heard that Becket, traveling 
that night when Le Yoisin assured us that blazing 
fire and driving snow had combined to hide all tra- 
ces of his work, this man of many parts, this learned 
clerk and valiant warrior, chanced, with a goodly 
arry of witnesses, to seek shelter from the storm in 
that very cottage to which Le Yoisin traced the 
lady baroness. The devil was half thy friend 
though, for Becket and his companions heard the 
tramp of galloping horses, even as they reached the 
cottage. Had they come upon the scene five min- 
utes sooner, instead of stinting the measure of thy 
purpose by saving the life of the boy, they had de- 
stroyed it altogether, for his mother also had been 
saved, and thou brought to a reckoning for his 
father’s death, instead of lording it so long as Baron 
of Marconvelle and Ravenscliffe! ” 


The People's Martyr. 5 1 

The Baron stamped his foot impatiently. 

“ Slave, doest thou mock me ? ” he exclaimed. 
“Seest thou not the first evil had been better than 
the last. Raymond of St. Gilles then lorded it at 
Thoulouse, to which King Henry now lays claim. 
I was in possession of Marconville; I had treasure; 
I would have let the English lordship go. But 
now, neither from Louis nor Henry can I look for 
favor; this cunning churchman sways both the 
monarch s at his will. I dare not, I dare not prac- 
tice further against the boy. 

“ Lives Hubert de Marconville to say the deed is 
to be done he dares not do ? ” retorted the retainer 
bitterly; “then do I, Jean Gaspard, sore bewail 
me that I did not, at the risk of the gallant party 
of English knights and men-at-arms who rode up 
even as I had fitted a quarrel to my crossbow, from 
my ambuscade among the vines sent the bolt 
through the stripling’s back as he tripped it so gaily 
on the road to Cahors, where he will make my 
young Lady Adeline’s plaint known to this pestilent 
churchman.” 

“Ha! sayest thou?” ejaculated the Baron; 
“dares the minion think of appeal against me? 
Gaspard! Gaspard! flout me not. I am a man 
wholly ruined and undone. This Becket pressed 
me hard in the matter of Reginald Fitzurse, when 
he was not so great a man as now. Now the boy 
who for my confusion he saved from death, comes 
to speak with this wilful Adeline, and he bears her 


52 


The People s Martyr . 


plaint to the Chancellor’s ears. If by one of those 
thousand hateful chances which spring up like 
mushrooms in such a case as this, he comes to con- 
nect the Baron de Marconvdlle with the murder in 
the Kentish woods, rough hands will be laid on Le 
Voisin, he will be put to the torture, and I warrant 
me the craven-hearted hound will whimper and 
confess.” 

“Nay, my lord, condemn not Le Voisin before- 
hand for that,” replied Gaspard, with a brutal 
laugh; “racks and prisons are potent arguments to 
try a man’s faith. I would not be sworn, but your 
faithful Gaspard might yield to their reasoning. 
But be not so hot, my lord, in the tumult of your 
fears. How can you look for others to be true to 
you, and you so fail yourself? You fear the tale 
of the Lady Adeline, which this youth bears to the 
ears of the Chancellor; you fear, lest by some 
unforeseen chance, the reports, of this province 
should reach the minister’s ears, and that the Baron 
de Marconville of Ravenscliffe in England 
should be named with the murder of this boy’s 
mother.” 

“And have I not cause to fear it?” cried the 
Baron impatiently. “ King Henry, King Louis, 
and the Count de Gilles, are all alike rapacious. 
If the birth-right of this youth can be proved, 
they will make a merit of restoring him the land in 
England, by mulcting him of that in France. God 
wot, they may patch up a marriage between the 


The People's Martyr. 


S3 


boy and this fractious damsel, and take a slice 
from her appanage of Couci as the price of their 
favor; and the two brats, who doubtless believe in 
the fable which is called love by the minstrels, will 
be right well content with the remainder.” 

“ Why, but it is a marvel,” ejaculated the re- 
tainer, with another grim laugh, “ to note how ex- 
perience serves all men at a pinch. Who would 
have thought that Baron Hubert de Marconville 
would have had a suspicion of the delicate fancies 
which subsist between a fair maiden and a gallant 
youth. Doubtless, it is a memory of the time 
when more comely in feature, and less bulky of 
limb than he is now, lie, too, boldly proffered his 
love to his brother’s wife, and as much in revenge 
of her scorn, as in greed of the broad barony, gave 
orders, when she fled to England, for the murder of 
the lady and her child! ” 

The squire, Jean Gaspard, reckoned well on his 
knowledge of his lord’s pernicious secrets when he 
ventured to taunt him thus; but on the present oc- 
casion he goaded his guilty master beyond endu- 
rance, and, with threats made inarticulate by rage, 
the Baron, sprang upon him, and pointed his dag- 
ger at Gaspard’s throat. Both were powerful and 
muscular men, and it was the first time that the 
strength of either had been put forth against the 
other; and but that Marconville’s sinews were 
weakened by the fury of his wrath, the contest 
misdit have been doubtful. 

O 


54 


The People s Martyr . 


As it was, cool determination as usual over- 
mastered frantic rage, and wresting the uplifted 
dagger from the baron’s grasp, Gaspard hurled 
him into one of the oaken chairs with such vio* 
lence, that the solid frame cracked, andDe Mareon- 
ville lay back almost senseless, and gasping for 
breath. 

With grim coolness the retainer loosened his 
master’s sword-belt and the collar of his doublet, 
dashed a goblet of cold water in his face, and 
poured a goblet of wine down his throat, then, 
with folded arms, he leaned against the table, re- 
garding De Marconville witli that half compassion- 
ate, half contemptuous look, with which the keeper 
who has subdued a lunatic gazes at him when the 
paroxysm is past. 

“So!” he exclaimed, as the Baron, sputtering 
and gasping, sat up and wiped his face and beard, 
gazing at his confederate with a rueful mixture of 
submission and defiance; “so, my Lord Hubert de 
Marconville, thou dost well and wisely, to spring 
like a bloodhound at the throat of the very man 
who can either make or mar thee yet.” 

“To mar me*, Jean Gaspard, my poor knave, 
against whom my wrath is in sooth unbecoming — 
that is already done; but to make me, Gaspard, is 
beyond thy wit, as much as for the king’s cunning 
men to set up again the broken egg of the nurse’s 
rhyme,” said the Baron, in a rueful tone. 

“ The egg-shell is not yet broken into so many 


The People s Martyr . 


55 


pieces but it may be joined so neatly with help of 
the white, it will need sharp eyes indeed to see the 
crack,” answered Gaspard. 

“ I see not the purpose of thy speech,” replied 
De Marconville. “ Good Gaspard, I am dull 
of wit; do not talk to me in parables.” 

“To be plain, then,” returned Gaspard; “this 
broken egg is the baronies of Marconville and 
Ravenscliffe; the yolk and the white, with which 
we can solder the fracture, are the silver and gold 
in thy coffers, Hubert de Marconville, to shut 
the mouths of those who would speak in thy 
dispraise.” 

“You forget, Gaspard,” ejaculated the Baron, 
“the tale of Adeline is already carried to the ears 
of the Chancellor: may he be eternally confound- 
ed — the dour, shrewd Saxon! I tell thee, Gaspard, 
it was an instinct, a foreshadowing of evil to come, 
that made my spirit wax low when I heard he was 
in France.” 

“ It was an instinct of restitution,” returned Gas- 
pard, gruffly. “You were minded, my lord, how 
he trounced you in England three years come 
Martinmas, in the matter of Reginald Fitzurse, and, 
aware that your practice here in fair Guienne will 
not bear the light of the sun, when it was seen 
through even the English fog, you had a whole- 
some forethought — do not call it fear — of Henry 
re-establishing the rights of his queen, and becoming 
thereby the lady Adeline’s liege lord. Marry, it 


56 


The People's Martyr . 


was no miracle your heart waxed low at the coming 
of this Chancellor! But look up bravely, my lord, 
and we will tread down the danger yet.” 

“How! how!” exclaimed the Baron, fiercely, 
“ when Adeline’s tale is already carried to the 
Chancellor, and he will bear it to the king, — how, 
I ask, is the mischief to be averted ? I dare not — 
I repeat the word — I dare not deal with the Lady 
de Couci, as I dealt with my brother’s unknown 
English wife.” 

“ Go to!” cried Gaspard; “is there not a brave 
tournament at Cahors to-morrow ?” 

“Thou knowest there is,” returned his master, 
peevishly; “but how, I pray you, does that 
advantage me? Rather the appearance of Adeline 
in so public a scene, shall evoke for me some 
dire evil.” 

“Be calm, my lord,” said the wily retainer; 
“ this unworthy cowardice, these unwarranted 
fears, have bewildered your judgment. Be your- 
self again; were you not one skilled in all the 
sports of chivalry ? IIow many a bold baron and 
gallant knight has gone down before your lance at 
joust and tourney, and in the hard-fought battle- 
field? Your eye has not failed you, nor your arm 
grown weak; nay, if I mind me well, you told the 
Lady Adeline you would perhaps run a course in 
the lists of Cahors yourself.” 

“ But if I did contemplate such an act of foolery, 
as exposing myself to the hancce of sore bones for 


The People's Martyr . 


5 7 


the empty praise of knightly skill and valor, in 
what manner, I pray you, would such achievement 
avail me in my present threatened strait ?” 

“You are well skilled in arms, my lord,” replied 
the retainer,” “and you despise the fame and 
honor; but you would not, I doubt me, think so 
light of the advantage over your enemy, for such I 
judge this Chancellor a Becket to be, which might 
accrue from your encountering him in the lists at 
Cahors, where this lay churchman and warrior pro- 
poses to splinter a lance with the French knights.” 

“And what advantage, save that jingle of 
praise, which, as thou dost truly suggest, I despise, 
should I win by defeating the Chancellor ?” 

“ My lord! ” cried the villainous retainer, leaning 
over the table and looking into the face of the 
Baron, with eyes full of wicked meaning, — “ My 
lord, this lawyer, this lay servant of the church, 
can scarcely hold his course against a knight of 
such skill and practice in arms as yourself.” Then 
the man dropped his voice, and- glanced round the 
chamber as if half fearful that his dire suggestion 
should meet other ears than those of De Marcon- 
ville. “ My lord,” continued Gaspard, in a hoarse 
whisper, “you have still by you, if I mistake not, 
that golden box of precious ointment which you pur- 
chased of the Jewish mediciner from the Holy Land.” 

The Baron started, the flush of anger faded from 
his swart countenance, and left it of a cadaverous 
yellow. 


58 


The People's Martyr . 


“Ay,” lie replied, in a voice as subdued and fear- 
ful as that of his confederate, “ it was indeed a 
precious medicine; the dog Jew who had learned 
to compound it among the worshippers of Mahound, 
accursed as himself, perished at the stake for prac- 
tising the black art. I mind me well, that he 
hailed me in the market-place of Thoulouse as he 
was led to execution, and jeered me as his avenger 
on the Christian. That was before my brother 
died, and I flung my gauntlet in the face of the 
infidel for the taunt.” 

“You have some portion of that ointment 
still, my lord,” urged the retainer, unheeding the 
story of the Jew, from whom it had been obtained. 

“ Ay, and what then ? ” replied the Baron, in a 
hollow tone. 

“ ’T was a subtle poison,” answered the retainer; 
“ ’tis the best trick of knightly skill to unhelm your 
opponent, and one in which mine honorable lord 
excelled. The splintered lance may scratch the op- 
posing knight, and who shall say in such a case 
whether this braggart Chancellor, who will needs 
be warrior too, shall live to injure my lord in the 
favor of King Henry.” 

The Baron glared in the face of the counsellor, 
whose suggestions jumped so well with his own evil 
thoughts; then he murmured, as if rather conferring 
with himself than addressing Gaspard — 

“The point of a lady’s broidery needle, dipped in 
that salve, bears DEATH ! ” 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE TOURNAMENT AT CAHORS. 

No more splendid pageant perhaps has the 
world witnessed, than a tournament of the middle 
ages. 

It was not, however, till towards the reign of 
Edward the Third, that these sports of chivalry 
were exhibited in their fullest magnificence, when 
the superb plate armor, often damasked and inlaid 
with devices of silver and gold, came into general 
use. 

Nevertheless, even so early as the twelfth century, 
the glittering mail, the waving banners with their 
embroidered devices, the noble barons, the stately 
figures of the knights; the balconies in which sat 
the fair dames and damsels, whose rich garments 
of tissues and brocade, gleamed with the varied 
tints of the rainbow, made up a gorgeous show, 
beside which anything of modern parade is paltry 
and ineffective. 

A fair scene was that of the tournament at Cahors 
with the cloudless sun of the sweet south — the land 
of the vine and the myrtle — glittering on polished 
shields and fluttering pennons. 


6o 


The People's Martyr. 

Six knights of Bucket’s train, among whom was 
that Reginald Fitzurse, who was destined years 
afterwards to win an immortality of infamy, as the 
savage murderer of his noble benefactor, held the 
field as challengers against all opponents of the 
chivalry of France, with the Chancellor himself at 
their head. 

A gallant array did these knights make, as they 
peraded the lists on the opening of the tourna- 
ment, preceded by the heralds with their gaudy 
tabards glittering with silver and gold, and fol- 
lowed by their squires, each bearing his master’s 
lance and shield. 

The colors of the challengers were scarlet and 
blue, and none among these presented a more dis- 
tinguished appearance than their chief, Thomas a 
Becket, who wore a superb suit of what was called 
tagulated armor, which consisted of a small square 
overlapping plates of metal, which sometimes, as 
was the case in that worn by the magnificent Chan- 
cellor, was richly gilt. Across his breast the 
Chancellor wore a scarf of scarlet and blue, and 
a plume of scarlet and blue feathers nodded on his 
hemlet. 

As the martial train passed the balcony wherein 
was seated the fair Adeline de Couci, in company 
with the noble ladies of the province, the squire 
of the Chancellor came in for a share of the com- 
mendation which was freely bestowed on his noble* 
looking master. 


The People's Martyr. 6 1 

A fair youth, indeed, was this squire, and well 
the bright liveries of scarlet and blue became his 
graceful figure and handsome face. 

In the tie of the scarf of scarlet silk that crossed 
the breast of this youth, was fastened a knot of 
white Provence roses; and, as he passed the bal- 
cony in which was seated the fair heiress, Adeline 
de Couci, he drew forth the bunch of roses, gaily 
waved it, and then pressed the blossoms to his lips. 

The fair Adeline smiled, and taking from her 
bosom a corresponding spray of roses, she waved it 
in return. 

By this time a great number of knights had as- 
sembled to oppose the challengers, the tourna- 
ment commenced, and was marked by the usual 
varying fortune on either side, according as the 
skill of the knights’ challengers was equalled or sur- 
passed by that of their opponents. 

The sun was sinking towards the west, and the 
sports of the day were drawing to a close, when a 
trumpet blast rung out loud and fiercely from the 
northern extremity of the lists, and a knight of 
herculean proportions, encased from head to foot 
in brown armor, mounted on a heavy black horse, 
and bearing a shield without device of any kind, 
presented himself to run a course with the Chan- 
cellor. 

Now Becket had manfully, and in true knightly 
style, borne himself throughout the day, had un- 
horsed two of the French knights who had opposed 
6 


52 


The People's Martyr. 


him, and had obtained over two more, such advan- 
tages as by the laws of tourney made him the 
victor. 

The spectators, as in all such cases, favored the 
successful, and had but little pity for the discom- 
fited knights; but they knew that moral strength 
and valor can hold good only to a certain point, 
and they were not pleased at the appearance of 
this new champion, who had entered himself in the 
lists as the “ Unknown knight.” 

He sat like a tower of iron on his massive steed, 
while waitng for the trumpet to sound the onset, 
and the spectators feared for the weary arm of 
the hitherto conqueror, as opposed to the untried 
strength of this colossal knight. 

The first course, however, released them from 
these apprehensions, and resulted in the disgrace- 
ful discomfiture of the stranger knight, who, throw- 
ing his whole strength upon a blow directed at his 
antagonist’s hemlet, missed the stroke, and thrown 
forward upon his own impetus, hi3 lance passed 
harmless over the shoulder of his adversary, whose 
weapon, striking on the frontal piece of his visor, 
hurled him from the saddle like a stone from a 
sling. 

Immediately on the defeat of the unknown 
knight, Becket threw himself from his saddle, and 
approached his fallen antagonist to demand kis 
submission. 

This, however, the unknown knight was in no 


The People' s Martyr. 


63 


condition to render, as he lay senseless on the sands, 
with the blood flowing between the bars of his 
visor. 

As humane and courteous as he was valiant, 
Becket was about to forestall the marshals and at- 
tendants of the tourney, and himself remove the 
helmet of the dismounted knight, when the esquire 
of the latter, completely armed like his master, and 
with a closed visor that concealed his face, rushed 
forward, and throwing himself on his knees beside 
his master, demanded of Becket, in the name of 
chivalry, to stand back, and forbear to infringe on 
the incognito of his master, who was under a 
vow, for a certain space, to contend at such 
knightly games as that of the day; and whether 
as victor or the vanquished, to keep his name and 
nation still concealed. 

At these words of the esquire, spoken in a hoarse 
voice, in which grief and disappointment appeared 
to contend, not only Becket himself, but all the 
officers and attendants of those martial games drew 
back; and so profound was the respect in which a 
vow, either knightly or religious, was held in those 
days, that the squire was suffered to bear his dis- 
comfited master off the field, without any attempt 
being made to pry into their incognito. 






CHAPTER V. 

THE NIGHT AFTER THE TOURNAMENT. 

The magnificent Chancellor, so famous for his 
hospitalities, gave, you may be sure, a most gor- 
geous banquet, in honor of his own triumph, and 
that of his English knights, at Cahors. 

A touch of barbarism there might be in the 
midst, but the splendor of those Norman and Plan- 
tagenet days was both solid and effective. There 
was no electro plate; no mingling of an inferior 
fibre with the tissues of silk. 

The napery of Flanders, already celebrated, cov- 
ered the board which gleamed with vessels of silver 
and gold; nor was the feast unworthy of the splen- 
dour with which it was served, though modern taste 
would have accounted porpoise a fish unfit for the 
table, and would have called the peacock dry eating, 
despite the glory of his spread tail, illumined by 
the blaze of the sponge, steeped in spirits, which 
was placed in his mouth. 

Full goblets of the choicest wines of Burgundy 
and France were served to the guests, one of whom 
neither wine nor wassail could win from a mood of 


The People s Martyr. 


65 


melancholy, as little suited to the time and place 
as to his own naturally hopeful and joyous temper. 

This exception to the general hilarity was the 
favorite page and protege of the Chancellor — the 
youth Eustace. 

By permission of Becket, he had sought the lady 
Adeline de Couci, when the tournament was over, 
but found to his mortification that before the sports 
were half concluded, she had been summoned from 
her seat in the gallery by messengers from her 
uncle, the Baron de Marconville, who stated that he 
had been suddenly taken ill. 

To present himself at the gates of the castle of 
Couci, and seek speech with the young lady, Eus- 
tace knew would be useless. No stranger was ever 
permitted by the morose and savage De Marconville 
to cross the drawbridge, and at the penalty of a 
sharp reproof from the steward of Becket’s house- 
hold, who was an exceedingly punctilious officer, 
and one who was impressed with more than an 
average sense of his own importance, Eustace de- 
layed so long on his return to the Chancellor’s 
abode at Cahors, that the second trumpet had sound- 
ed for the banquet, and the server was marshalling 
the guests to their places at the board, ere he, with 
his hastily donned holiday attire, scarce arranged 
with his accustomed care, took his place as chief of 
the pages. 

Kind and thoughtful, even for the meanest officer 
of his household, Becket did not fail to notice the 


66 


The People' s Martyr. 


depressed looks of his beloved adopted son, and 
even amid the claims of his distinguished guests to 
his hospitable attention, found time, in the course 
of the evening, to elicit from Eustace how he had 
been disappointed in his purpose of making known 
to the Lady de Couci, that the Chancellor had 
promised to represent her case to King Henry, from 
whom he, the Chancellor, had that day received a 
summons to join the court at Falaise. 

The Chancellor looked thoughtful at this infor- 
mation, and said, “ I misdoubt me, Eustace, that 
this De Marconville, is a caitiff villain, unworthy 
of his gilded spurs; since we have been here in 
France, I have hard much that marks him with 
an evil repute, such as he won from his tyrannies in 
our own fair English county of Kent towards our 
honest Reginald Fitzurse. But be of good cheer, 
Eustace, it will be heard if this rascal chieftain of 
the second class defy the power of our lord the 
king both in Normandy and England.” 

With this consolation Eustace was fain to be con- 
tent, but he could not shake off that sense of some 
approaching misfortune which sometimes assails 
even imaginative persons, and which occasionally, 
as in this instance it proved, we may without super- 
stition believe, are suggestions of some benevolent 
power which shadows out the possible evil in a salu- 
tary warning which prevents it. It was the custom 
of those days for persons of high rank to have 
pages and other attendants sleep in the antecham* 


The People's Martyr. 


67 


ber of their own apartment, sometimes even on a 
pallet in the actual sleeping room of the prince or 
noble. 

Magnificent as Becket was in his tastes, and lavish 
in his expenditure, he never altogether forgot the 
scholar and man of letters in the warrior and states- 
man, and he liked not the wearisome espionage 06 
attendance night and day. 

Thus it was that of his numerous train of attend- 
ants, none slept in his chamber, his favorite Eustace, 
even, whom he regarded as a son, only occupying a 
small room opening from that of the Chancelloi*, 
and the other pages and gentlemen of his chamber 
lying in a contiguous apartment. 

Thus it was that after Becket, somewhat wearied 
with his share in the chivalrous sports of the morn- 
ing, and with the exercise of the duties of host at 
the sumptuous banquet of the evening, had retired 
to his chamber, Eustace, unable to sleep, and over- 
come by thoughts, the anxious and melancholy 
tenor of which, even to himself, appeared un- 
reasonable, rose from his couch, and, opening 
the casement, looked out upon the fair summer 
night. 

The house in which Becket had taken up his 
abode was a large and old-fashioned mansion in the 
outskirts of Cahors. It had been the abode of a 
wealthy citizen, and was surrounded with gardens 
where flourished groves of myrtle, and orange, of 
pomegranate, magnolia, and oleander. 


68 


The People s Martyr. 


It was a delicious summer night, the blue and 
boundless sky was 

“ Thick inlaid with pattens of bright gold.” 

The only sounds were the whispering of the breeze 
as it swept the perfumes from the orange groves, 
and the melody of the nightingale as she warbled 
in the thickets of roses. 

The mystery that hung over his parentage natu- 
rally somewhat damped in Eustace the buoyant 
spirits of youth. Perhaps the assertion of his 
dying mother, that his birth was noble, added to 
this melancholy, as it impressed him with a cruel 
sense of wrong. 

Who had his father been ? What haughty crest 
among the baronage of Normandy and England 
was of right his own. 

And the fair Adeline de Couci! — Say even that 
the influence of the great Chancellor should suffice 
to rescue her from her uncle’s tyranny, what chance 
that the hand of the noble and wealthy heiress 
would be the award of a poor unknown youth, de- 
pendent on the churchman’s bounty ? 

Those proud barons who regarded the simple 
burgher with so much scorn, were as greedy for 
wealth as the meanest citizen. 

The latticed casement from which Eustace leaned 
to woo the night breeze, while these thoughts 
passed through his mind, was on a line with a large 


The People s Martyr . 69 

window in Becket’s apartment, which window* 
opened on a bartisan or stone balcony. 

Acacias and rhododendrons of enormous size 
reached almost the level of this balcony. As Eus- 
tace in melancholy mood still leaned from his own 
casement, he fancied that he saw a shadow of a man 
for a moment darken the bright moonlight space 
that lay between the bartisan, and a grove of lemon 
and orange. 

The next moment a long wailing cry, such as the 
dog is imputed to utter on the approach of death, 
met his ears. 

This was succeeded by total silence for some 
minutes, and Eustace would have thought that he 
had been deceived by the fitful shadows of the trees 
wavering in the light wind, but that his attention 
was presently roused by the sharp snapping of a 
twig or small branch of the huge rhododendron be- 
low the Chancellor’s window. A painful interval 
of silence again followed. The intruder, of whose 
presence Eustace was now perfectly aware, was 
doubtless himself startled by the crack of the wood, 
and apprehensive lest it should have been overheard, 
would be very cautious in his movements. Ten 
minutes perhaps of this dead silence had passed, 
when Eustace, who now was careful to conceal him- 
self on his watch within the embrasure of the case- 
ment, perceived a dark form rising among the 
boughs of the rhododendron. 

The man, whose garments were as dark as the 


70 


The People s Martyr . 


bark and foliage of the tree, cautiously felt his way 
upwards, only dimly discernible when the moon- 
beams sifted through the foliage. His object was 
evidently to climb the bartisan of the Chancellor’s 
chamber window. 

The purpose of this secret approach could, of 
course, be none other than that of the robber and 
assassin, and Eustace, drawing his dagger from the 
sheath, crept softly from his own chamber into that 
of hi? patron. 

Becket, worn with the fatigue of the day, was 
sunk in a profound sleep, and even as Eustace 
entered the apartment, the head and shoulders of a 
man rose above the bartisan. To withdraw the 
bolt, fling open the casement, and dash out upon 
the balcony, was the work of a moment wdth the 
active youth, and even as the intruder set his foot 
on the edge of the bartisan, the strong hand of 
Eustace grasped his throat. 

In climbing the rhododendron the ruffian had 
been compelled to use both his hands, and between 
his teeth he held an unsheathed dagger; simulta- 
neously with the grasp upon his neck the dagger 
was wrenched from his mouth so violently, that 
two of his front teeth accompanied it. 

The man, who was no other than Gaspard, the 
favorite attendant of the Baron de Marconville, 
uttered a howl of rage, and struggled ferociously 
with the slight, slim youth, whom he thought to 
overcome with his weight, and in the struggle he 


The People s Martyr . 


7 ' 


was slightly wounded by the point of his own 
weapon, as he sought to force it out of his oppo- 
nent’s hand. 

A yell of rage and despair immediately burst 
from his lips, he abandoned all effort at self- 
defence, threw up his arms wildly, and staggering 
backwards, fell sheer over the low parapet of the 
bartisan into the garden below. 

This struggle, as is always the case with acts of 
sudden violence, was enacted in less time than 
it has taken to describe; and the Chancellor, 
awakened by the noise, had not lime to spring 
to the assistance of Eustace, when the event was 
decided. 

The household was roused, and servants 
sent out to bring into the mansion the wounded 
man. 

He lay groaning and writhing in the shrubbery, 
and the persons who went to his assistance were 
surprised to find that he should suffer from what 
appeared to them a trifling hurt, a mere scratch 
on the throat, from which but little blood had 
flowed. 

Nevertheless he was in the agonies of death when 
they laid him down in the great hall of the man- 
sion, and the household apothecary of the Chancel- 
lor, who had been summoned, shook his head, and 
pronounced the man past leechcraft, and he 
was dying from the effects of some subtle and swift 
poison. 


7 2 


The People s Martyr . 


The miserable wretch, who had not lost his 
powers of consciousness or speech, gnashed his 
teeth as the fatal word met his ear. 

Then glaring horribly around him, in a broken 
voice he demanded to speak with the Chancellor; 
and on Becket approaching, he gasped out in broken 
sentences — 

“My device has fallen on mine own head! The 
dagger’s poisoned point was meant for you! I 
perished for my faith to a master, on whose behalf 
I have wrought many a black deed! Full many a 
time has the reward of my service been a maledic- 
tion, because I had wrought it not to my lord’s 
content; and at best he would throw me a few by- 
zants as he might have tossed a bone to a 
famished hound! I hated those on whom I 
practised by my master’s bidding, but most of 
all I hated him, and years have fled since I 
made oath that the time should come I would be 
well avenged! ” 

“ Talk not of vengeance, miserable man ! ” said 
Becket, “ but rather take ghostly council of my 
chaplain! ” 

“Ghostly council!” reiterated the dying man, 
Avith a laugh that chilled the blood of his hearers. 
“No, no! I want none of that; and if I did, thou 
art half a priest, my Lord a Becket, and to confess 
to thee will serve my turn; for I own to you, my 
lord, it is not in penitence that I confess! For 
each black deed that I have done, I would it had 


The People's Martyr . 


73 


been twenty! I bewail that I am dyiug, because, 
in sooth, the dead hand is powerless for mischief! 
I am no coward to cant and whine because I know 
that I am sped, and if I betray a secret thou wilt 
be glad to learn, it is not to pleasure thee, but, be- 
cause hating all the world, as I said before, I hate 
my master most, and shall draw my last breath, re- 
joicing that he will be pulled down from his high 
estate by the legacy of my hate! Hark, not only 
you, my Lord a Becket, but all here present, my 
master, the Baron Hubert de Marconville, was the 
slayer of his own brother. He took him off with 
poison; and why forsooth, but that he found the 
fair English leman, as he thought her, was his bro- 
ther’s wife, and the mother of a fair son! Ho! ho! 
ho! but he managed that business bravely! Suspi- 
cion attended our practice here in France; but 
suspicion was not proof, and when the lady fled to 
England, to her native country, Le Yoisin, our 
seneschal at Ravenscliffe, wrought well in all, but 
suffering her boy to live. There was no suspicion 
there, none! and thou, my Lord a Becket, never 
deemed thy adopted son was the heir of Marcon- 
ville and Ravenscliffe!” 

“Unhappy man, I will believe that thou dost 
speak the truth,” said Becket, “but other proof 
than thy confession will be required to convict 
Hubert de Marconville of these crimes, and dis- 
possess him of his wronged nephew’s lands.” 

“ The prior of the Cistercians at Thoulouse, holds 


74 


The People's Martyr . 


records of the marriage, and the birth and baptism 
of the boy; but, like the rest of the world, he has 
deemed for years that the child died with its mo- 
ther in England,” returned Gaspard, in a fainter 
tone than he had hitherto used. Then after a min- 
ute’s silence he seemed to rally, and bursting into 
a discordant laugh, he exclaimed, “ But what mat- 
ters that to me ? Think ye, fair sirs, I tell this tale 
in simple love for the boy’s advantage? Marry, I 
care little whether he gets the two broad baronies, 
or tastes the cup his father drank before him! I 
care not whether my master or the boy shall win, 
so that I mix a demon’s broth for all your supping. 

, But I am weary; yet I would fain tell more. 
Baron Hubert lieth sorely bruised. Thou art a 
good lance, most doughty churchman. IIo! ho! 
ho! Yes, a brave lance! Just drive away that 
huge black ape, that stands gibbering at the foot 
of the couch. See, he has broad black wings upon 
his shoulders. He stretches out long fiery talons. 
Oh! mercy, mercy!” 




CHAPTER VI. 

A MOTE IN THE SUNBEAM. 

In a noble apartment of the castle of Falaise in 
Normandy, sat two persons in close confer- 
ence a few days after the tournament at Cahors. 

Though that chamber was richly furnished 
according to the fashion of the times, yet 
both barbarism and gloom were mingled with its 
magnificence. 

Thus, the walls were hung with tapestry depict- 
ing the deeds of Rollo, the great founder of the 
Norman rule, and his marriage with Gisla, the 
daughter of the French King. This tapestry was 
magnificent, silken and even gold threads being 
mingled with the many colored wools of which it 
was wrought. The table, of carved and polished 
oak, was covered with a crimson velvet cloth, 
fringed with gold lace, but the tall, narrow, uncur- 
tained casements were sunk so deep in the thick 
wall; the mullions were so massive, and the small 
panes of glass so dull and greenish in hue, that the 
noonday sun even penetrated the chamber with 
subdued and sickly rays, stained glass being at this 


76 


The People s Martyr . 


period used but sparingly even in ecclesiastical 
buildings, and royal dwellings. 

Then, though there was a couch in the room, 
stuffed with eider down, and curtained with silk, 
the floor was covered wi,th no better material 
than green newly-cut rushes, mingled with sweet 
herbs. 

This slovenly and uncomfortable practice, how- 
ever, by no means continued in the houses of per- 
sons of high rank, to the late period ascribed to it 
by some modern writers, who take a strange plea- 
sure in misrepresenting the manners and morals of 
the middle ages. 

Foot-cloths, or carpets as we should call them, 
were extensively introduced by the crusaders, who 
became accustomed to the use of that Oriental 
luxury in Palestine, so that it was not' long after 
the reign of Henry the Second, that the strewing 
of straw and rushes was confined to the great 
stone-paved baronial halls, and the uncouth 
practice altogether abandoned in the private apart- 
ments. 

Two persons, we have said, were conferring in 
that chamber. 

One was a middle-sized man, with a greater ten- 
dency to corpulence than was consistent with ele- 
gance of figure; his short, crisp hair, was of that 
sanguine hue, which flatterers would have delicate- 
ly specified as auburn, and plain-spoken people 
might aptly have denominated as red. His face, 


The People s Martyr. 


77 


though the features were good, had less of beauty 
than firmness and energy, as it was inclined to 
square; the full, but well-cut lips, closely com- 
pressed when he was not speaking, and the some- 
what hard and massive moulding of the jaw, alike 
indicating a disposition which might be determined 
even to obstinacy. His eyes were peculiar both in 
shape and color, being unusually round and some- 
what prominent, while their hue was a light hazel 
— a kind of reddish brown. 

The dress of this person was more simple than 
that usually worn by men of rank, consisting of 
tight, close-fitting hose and jerkin of murry-colored 
cloth, slightly guarded with silver lace, round-toed 
shoes of buff leather, and a small short cloak hang- 
ing from the left shoulder. 

In those days, defensive weapons were never 
wholly laid aside. A short sword, in a plain scab- 
bard, was at this person’s side, and a dagger in his 
girdle, to which also was slung a silver hunting- 
hoi*n. The only article of ornament he wore was, 
however, a very costly one, namely, a massive gold 
chain about his neck, from which depended a me- 
dallion in which emeralds, rubies, and sapphires 
vied in lustre and size. 

In form and feature, costume and demeanor, the 
companion of this gentleman presented a perfect 
contrast. 

He was tall and slender in person, with a face 
that might have been called effeminately handsome, 


78 


The People s Martyr. 


with its delicately-cut features, fair < complexion, and 
blue eyes; his light brown hair, also, was redolent 
of perfume, and fell in long curled locks upon his 
shoulders. His tunic and hose of blue satin were 
powdered with gold stars; his long furred mantle 
of scarlet cloth swept the ground like a woman’s 
train; and to complete the foppery of his appear- 
ance, he wore the preposterous pointed shoes, at 
which the clergy for centuries ineffectually railed, 
since the fashion prevailed at intervals since the 
time of William Rufus, when it was first introduced, 
to that of Richard the Second. 

Never was this absurd and inconvenient fashion 
adopted to a more extravagant extent, than by the 
chevalier we describe; the leather of his shoes was 
dyed scarlet, and further ornamented with little 
gilt bosses; and the peaks, twisted like a ram’s horn, 
were so long they must needs be fastened with 
silver chains to the wearer’s knee. 

To give the last touch to his fashionable absurdi- 
ty, this fop of the first Plantagenet’s days, wore 
about his neck a jewelled chain, from which hung 
one of the small silver hand -mirrors in use among 
the effeminate young nobles, and in which, when 
his companion’s back was turned, he managed to 
snatch an occasional glance at his own personal 
perfections, to arrange a stray curl, or to give his 
well-oiled moustache a most elegant twist. 

To indulge in this self-adrpiration, the fop had 
not infrequent opportunities, as his companion, with 


The People s Martyr. 


79 


folded arms and a lowering brow, seemingly in 
angered mood, kept pacing up and down the spa- 
cious chamber; while the fop, wearily standing 
first on one foot, and then on the other, more 
than once cast a glance at the numerous chairs 
and benches, as though he would fain have sat 
down. 

At length the plainly-attired person, who, despite 
his simple garb, was evidently the superior in rank, 
abruptly paused at the foot of the table, against 
which his companion leaned, and, casting a glance 
of contempt at the gay garb of the latter, he ex- 
claimed in a sarcastic voice — 

« By our halidome, Ranulf de Broc, were we not 
aware that no philosopher has yet sounded the 
depths of human folly, or the vanity of its contra- 
dictions, we should marvel that such a fellow of 
paint and spangles, silks and tissues as thyself, 
should have so shrewd a brain in matters of state 
import ! Neither lord nor lawyer, warrior nor 
clerk, save thyself, has hit upon that source of our 
kingly perplexities, which we ourselves detected 
long ago. By our lady! when our great grandsire 
William broke up the Witenagemot of the Saxon 
kings, and established the King’s Hall in its stead, 
he would have done well to lay his hand on some 
of the privileges of the Church, and not leave it to 
be governed by its own laws, so that by connivance 
of some proud priest, the veriest churl can all but 
beard us on our throne.” 


8o 


The People s Martyr. 


“ With submission, your grace,” answered Ranulf 
de Broc, a Norman knight and gentleman with 
large estates in Kent, who, a principal courtier of 
Henry the Second, was honored with his confidence, 
and made the sharer in his first Church perplexi- 
ties, “ the great conqueror lacked yet more of his 
accustomed wisdom, in forbidding the bishops to 
to sit with the sheriffs in the county courts, as 
they were wont to do in Saxon times, and in 
constraining them to try all causes in which they 
or their archdeacons were concerned, in courts of 
their own, and according to the canons and laws of 
the Church.” 

“ He thought thereby to diminish the power of 
the Church,” said Henry. 

“ Good lack ! my lord,” replied the cunning De 
Broc, “that very measure but increased it; for, of 
a truth, the practice of our Norman courts in 
maiming and branding, for what we will not stint 
to own were slight offences; and especially for 
aught infringing on the forest laws, did so enrage 
and scare the common people, that they were 
fain, in great numbers, to seek admission into the 
lower orders of the priesthood, that they might 
be rather punished by hard penances, than tried 
and sentenced without their favorite institution 
of a jury, which your grace’s royal ancestor abol- 
ished.” 

“Ay, and the result of this has been that the 
knave English, on all possible occasions, avoid our 


The People s Martyr . 81 

royal and baronial courts, and flock into those of 
the Church, to cram the filled purse of the priests 
to overflowing with their fees and forfeitures,” ex- 
claimed Henry. 

“ And swell their pride also, my gracious lord,” 
said the courtier. “ I can tell thee, sour and re- 
bellious words are spoken by the clergy, in that the 
incomes of vacant bishoprics go to fill the royal 
treasury. The poor, say the priests, are thereby 
robbed, since it is from the revenues of the Church 
that they are supported; and, in especial, much has 
been said respecting the nomination of your fair 
son, Lord Geoffry, to the bishopric of Lincoln, 
seeing that noble youth hath not yet a beard 
upon his chin, nor hath been admitted to holy 
orders.” 

Henry stamped his foot impatiently. “The pes- 
tilent shavelings!” he exclaimed; “would they 
had but one neck, with a strand of stout rope for a 
carcanet ! ” 

“ Or one head, and the axe in the hand of your 
faithful De Broc, to strike it off!” returned the 
courtier, while a smile of tigerish cruelty played 
over his thin, finely-cut face. 

The king bent his keen hazel eyes searchingly 
over the countenance of his companion; perhaps lie 
was but half pleased at the expression he noted 
there, for he ejaculated, “By the mass, De Broc, 
thou art over shrewd, like a cat; thou hast hidden 
thy talons well under a covering: of velvet. But 


82 


The People s Martyr . 


what is it, man ? speak out, for well we wot ’tis not 
in sympathy for our kingly dignity alone thou art 
so bitter against the priests; some one among them 
has done thee personal offence or wrong ! ” 

“ So please you, my royal lord,” replied De Broc, 
“it is not some one, but some half-dozen of these 
men of the Church ajainst whom I have a debt of 
ill will. For on,e, there is the abbot of Minster, 
who claims as Church land some fair meadows thal 
lie near unto the abbey domains, but assuredly be- 
long to my estate and not to the Church. Then there 
is his superior of St. Augustine’s at Canterbury, to 
whom I preferred my complaint, who took part 
with his subordinate, and threatened me with ex- 
communication an I dared lay hand upon mine own 
property. Then, not content with plundering me 
of mine own, these same shavelings gave sanctuary 
to a Saxon churl, a small franklin, who, in defiance 
of the forest laws, had slain a hare on my estate; 
nay, more, the false priests connived at the knave’s 
escape in one of the foreign ships that bring mer- 
chandise to Minster creek. My lord the king, your 
royal authority is defied by these churchmen, whe 
defeat your barons and knights of the right of 
maiming or brading their own vassels. Says 
your grace, I have a feud with the Church on my 
own account; well I wot that I have; the land they 
lay claim to was the best strip on my estate, the 
franklin whom they aided to escape, had mocked 
and defied me in a thousand ways.” 


The Peoples Martyr. 


83 


“Well, well, De Broc,” answered the king, “I 
have devised a plan, by which it is like the tyranny 
of the churchmen shall be abated; albeit they 
oftentimes are cunning to keep a semblance of the 
law on their side; and it may be in this matter of 
thy land, and thy farmer, who, at the risk of his 
eyes, destroyed a hare, thou hast forgotten some 
circumstances which extenuated' the plea of the 
abbot, and mitigated the forest treason of the 
franklin! ” 

As Henry spoke thus, he paused again in his rest- 
less pacing of the room, and fixed his keen, bright 
eyes on the face of De Broc, with a look so search- 
ing, that it confounded even the hardened impu- 
dence of his falsehood, and it was with a confused 
air, for which, though momentary, he invoked an 
internal malediction on himself, that he replied — 

“ In sooth, your grace, as to the land, there was 
mammering indeed of it having been willed to the 
Church by mine uncle on his deathbed; but for the 
franklin, the killing of the hare was not his first or 
worst offence; he had a comely enough wife; and 
both he and she, good lack, had been pleased to 
resent my having noted her beauty: his crops had 
failed that year, too. and had not the fools given 
me hard terms for my courtesy, I should not have 
sued the man for his rent. As it was, I bade the 
land-reeve enforce payment, but even that brought 
not their proud stomachs down; they sold their 
farm furniture to pay me, plough, horse, and all; 


84 


The People s Martyr. 


as a consequence, they were starving, and the wife 
fell ill; for fairest women live by bread, no less 
than the ill-favored, and then it was that the hus- 
band stole the hare! ” 

It was with recovered assurance that De Broc 
concluded this detail, and unblushingly faced the 
scrutinising gaze which the king still kept fixed 
upon him. 

44 There is something more even yet, Ranulf de 
Broc!” said Henry sternly; 44 deal with me as 
though thou wert at shrift. Ho holding back with 
thy confessor, or thy king! ” 

44 1 pursued the franklin to his dwelling, with 
the hare,” replied De Broc, in a subdued tone, “and 
threatened him with the forest law; the woman was 
sick, affrighted, and she died! 1 left the hus- 

band with the corpse. In the morning he had taken 
sanctuary.” 

|i Henry struck his clenched hand upon the table, 
with such violence, that the blood started from his 
knuckles. 

“This it is!” he roared, giving way to one of 
those tempests of passion which appalled the wit- 
nesses, “this it is! It is thou, and such as thou, 
Ranulf de Broc, who serve the cause of the over- 
bearing priests, who foster their tyranny, who furnish 
for it an unanswerable' plea. What says franklin, 
serf, and burgher, — there is no hope, no mercy, no 
safety for us, but in power of the Church. The 
Pope, the good father of Christendom, is our only 


The People s Martyr. 


85 


refuge. These rude barons, these fierce unlettered 
knights, deny meat to our children, chastity to our 
sisters and our wives. The Church gives food to 
the little ones, protects the honorable matron and 
innocent maid. Hence, their love, their veneration, 
pays back to the Church a thousand fold, the good 
it gives, erects it into a mighty power, and makes 
its servants, the priests, to outbrave their sovereign 
on his throne. But, by God’s truth, Ranulf de 
Broc, neither baron, knights, nor monks shall lord 
it in despite of Henry Plantagenet. I swear it by 
my father’s soul, nor priest nor layman shall defy 
my power or resist my will! But these diseases shall 
be mended shortly. The primacy is vacant; we 
mean promoting our Chancellor Becket to the see; 
and then we wot that priest and layman will have 
a master who can deal with both! ” 

“ My royal lord,” said He Broc, kneeling and as- 
suming a tone of humility, and shutting up in his 
heart a resentment more vindictive in its fury 
than that of the king, “though your kingly regard 
for the meanest even of your subjects is graciously 
extended to this Saxon franklin, be assured that itf 
needed not a fault on my part to provoke the 
insolent tyranny of the abbot of Minster. But the 
suggestion of your most royal wisdom in promoting 
the Chancellor to the long vacant primacy, will 
surely heal all troubles between the Church and 
State.” 

“Long vacant! ” repeated Henry, whose passion 


86 


The People s Martyr . 


was cooled by De Broc’s cunning demeanor, “ ay, 
it hath been vacant nigh two years, and might be 
kept vacant longer; but for such turbulent wolves 
as thou who so ravage the flock, we must needs be- 
stow on it a shepherd! ” 

Henry pronounced these words in an aggrieved 
tone, for be it understood, the revenues of all vacant 
bishoprics were paid into the royal treasury, and he 
had been in no hurry to resign the large income of 
the archbishopric of Canterbury. 

This acute monarch was well aware that the 
rapacity and cruelty of the nobles was the. most 
potent instrument in promoting the authority pf the 
Church, since they drove the people to regard it as 
their sole refuge here, no less than hereafter. In 
point of fact, the character of Henry largely par- 
takes of the harshness and cruelty of his predecessors, 
and the slight admixture of English blood derived 
from his grandmother Matilda, the wife of Henry 
the First, had but little mitigated his Norman con- 
tempt of the English natiou, hence he caredflittle 
for the wrongs which Dc Broc had wrought to his 
tenant the franklin, had not these wrongs cast the 
man on the protection of the Church. 

But Dc Broc was shrewd and clever. He had 
detected the two blunders in the Conqueror’s policy, 
which had left the Church to be governed by its 
own laws, and had ranged the royal and ecclesias- 
tical jurisdictions in open rivalry and opposition. 

Angry, therefore, as Henry was, that De Broc, by 


The People's Martyr. 


8 7 


Iris own showing, was a perpetrator of the very 
cruelties which he himself acknowledged drove the 
people to the protection of the Church, yet, in the 
struggle with the ecclesiastics, upon which he had 
already determiued, he calculated that this man 
might serve him well. 

Shrewd, luxurious, meap-spirited, and cruel, De 
Broc, the king perceived, would not hesitate to play 
the part of the spy on the one hand, or the military 
ruffian on the other. 

Henry himself was an extraordinary compound 
of fierceness and duplicity, and to serve any partic- 
ular purpose, did not disdain to descend to the 
meanest artifices. Individually, he cared nothing 
for the fate of a miserable Saxon franklin, and not 
much about De Broc’s quarrel with the abbot of 
Minster; so he resumed that incessant pacing the 
room, which was the torment of his attendants, upon 
whom, in his own restless activity, he had no 
mercy, but would keep them walking or standing 
for hours in his presence. 

The fierce glare died out of his eyes, the angry 
flush grew paler on his brow, till again pausing, he 
exclaimed, with that air of banter which it some- 
times pleased him to assume — 

“ By the holy Lord, Ranulf de Broc, thou art a 
marvel of audacity; thou dost shrewdly enough urge 
that the over severity of our royal courts drives the 
people before the ecclesiastical tribunals, and then, 
with impudence unparalleled, dost dare avow that 


88 


The People's Martyr. 


thou, a mere Kentish knight, and small landowner, 
hath perpetrated on a freeman, an injury worthy of 
an earl or baron. Go to! How didst thou find 
boldness to avow such a deed! ” 

•‘In sooth! because I lacked the greater boldness, 
to stand fast to the misdeed, and abuse the hearing 
of your grace with a lie!” answered De Broc de- 
murely. “ By my knightly honor, my conscience 
were too nice for that! ” 

“Thy conscience too nice!” cried Henry. 
“ Marry, thou wert best not abuse our royal hearing 
with a plea for that. Stand up, man! stand up! 
Thou art a shrewd knave, and it may be we shall 
find means to make thee a serviceable one! ” 

At this juncture, a blast of trumpets was heard, 
heralding the arrival of the Chancellor at Falaise. 




CHAPTER VII. 

A CLOUD IN THE DISTANCE. 

Though in his dress, and general demeanor, 
Henry the Second, who grasped at absolute power, 
was somewhat a contemner of the mere glitter and 
empty show of royalty, yet, on the occasion of re- 
ceiving the Chancellor, whom he had summoned 
somewhat hastily from Cahors, he assumed some 
state, and on entering the great hall of the castle, 
Beeket found the King seated on the dais, on his 
royal chair, cushioned and canopied with scarlet and 
gold, and vested in scarlet satin embroidered with 
gold, and an ermined mantle of purple velvet, in- 
stead of his ordinary simple attire. 

The Chamberlain, and several other of the chief 
officers of the court, were in attendance with their 
subordinates, and Ranulf de Broc stood a step or 
two below the royal chair. As for Beeket himself, 
he was, according to the custom, richly dressed, and 
surrounded by a gallant army of followers — 
knights in courtly robes of velvet and tissue, for 
which they had hastily put off the steel panoply in 
which they had ridden from Cahors; pages in uni- 


90 


The People's Martyr. 


forms glittering with embroidery of silver and 
gold, and serving-men in rich liveries. 

In spite of their ultimate quarrel, and its bitter 
end, it cannot be doubted that a real affection long 
subsisted between Henry and Thomas a Becket; 
and though there can be as little doubt that, from 
the gay and apparently worldly character of the 
latter, Henry thought to find in him a man alto- 
gether fitted to aid in his intention of changing 
the laws under which the Church was governed, 
we are equally free to assume, that mingled with 
this motive of self-interest, was a sincere and affec- 
tionate desire to promote to a still more eminent 
prosperity the fortunes of a beloved friend. Thus 
it was not with the mere sycophantic adulation of 
a courtier, that Becket bent his knee at the foot of 
the royal seat; not in ostentatious, kingly conde- 
scension, that Henry extended his hand for the ac- 
customed kiss. 

“We have sent for you, my lord,” said Henry, 
“ to announce to you our intention of promoting 
you to a state yet more fitting to your talents and 
your worth than any it has as yet been in our power 
to bestow.” 

“ My liege! ” answered Becket, and his tone and 
manner, though full of the respectful deference of 
an accomplished courtier, had yet more the tender- 
ness of an affectionate and grateful friend, “so 
liberally has your royal hand scattered its bounties, 
that I know not what preferment for which your 


The People s Martyr. 


91 


faithful servant can be deemed worthy, which 
the goodness of your Grace has not already 
bestowed! M 

“Nay, my lord,” answered Henry, “there yet 
remains in our gift an office, the highest in our 
realm of England, and which your genius and wis- 
dom most worthily fits you to occupy. You must 
prepare for a voyage to England; in a few days 
you will be Archbishop of Canterbury!” 

“I, your grace!” exclaimed Becket, in a voice 
in which incredulity was mingled with some- 
thing like dismay, “ I an archbishop ? Surely I 
am not suited like to so grave and reverend a 
person! ” 

As Becket spoke he glanced derisively at his own 
gay and gorgeous apparel, at his robe of azure 
satin, branched with pomegranates of gold, with 
silver leaves, at his under vest of saffron and silver, 
at sword and dagger which he wore full knightly, 
and the velvet cap with its snowy plume and agrafe 
of jewels, which he held in his hand. 

“Surely,” he repeated, “I have little the appear- 
ance of a prelate; and, of a truth, I doubt me but 
that your grace condescends to jest.” 

“By our father’s soul, we jest not, sir Chancel- 
lor! ” answered Henry, with a slight tincture of 
asperity in his tone; for it was the first time that 
Becket had offered even a momentary opposition 
to his wishes, and whatever may have been his 
ulterior purpose, it was no doubt mingled with the 


92 


The People's Martyr, 


desire to place his favorite on the highest pinnacle 
of prosperity and honor. 

“ Thou wilt make ready at once to enter the 
priesthood; for, by the rood, none but thou shalt 
be my Lord of Canterbury! ” 

“ Let me with profound gratitude beseech your 
grace not to force upon the most humble of your 
subjects a dignity of which he feels himself un- 
worthy,” said Becket earnestly, as he bent his knee 
to the king. “ Good lack, there is many a poor 
priest far fitter for such high and holy office than I 
am. I could myself name some half-dozen, who 
would fill the primate’s throne full worthily.” 

“Rise up, rise up, Lord Chancellor,” said the 
king, “and coy it not; thou knowest thyself, as one 
of thy great learning and wisdom needs must do, 
and must know that if our judgment halts in any 
matter, it is not in trusting our own welfare, or 
that of our lieges to thy guidance. Rise up, we do 
command thee; the Mitre of the Primacy shall bind 
no brow save thine.” 

“Nay, nay, your grace,” urged Becket, rising as 
the king had commanded, but only to kneel again 
upon the upper step of the throne, so that the ear- 
nest words he uttered should reach Henry’s ear 
alone, “ if of a truth your grace. does not jest, and 
would elevate me to this preferment, which I nei- 
ther desire nor feel equal to, let me, in the name of 
all the favors and bounties of which your grace has 
been so prodigal, implore that the recollection of 


The People s Martyr. 


93 


those bounties will stint your present purpose. 
My lord the King, the duties of the primate 
diverge widely from those of the lay minister. 
God knows, I have wrought hitherto honestly to 
do my duty in a manner consistent with your royal 
prerogatives, the welfare of your lieges, and the 
profound gratitude of my own heart toward your 
grace, my most royal, most generous benefactor. 
In the office of primate, my duties would be so dif- 
ferent, that in troth I foresee in them a barrier, 
which shall perhaps exclude me from your favor, 
which shall overwhelm and destroy that loving 
personal regard which has been dearer to me as 
the effusion of your noble heart, than even the 
high place, the honors, and wealth with which I 
have been loaded by your munificence. My lord 
the King, in the name of our sweet lady’s grace, 
let me beseech, let me implore, that this unsought, 
this dangerous dignity pass me by.” 

Henry was in no way softened or shaken in his 
resolution by this appeal. He listened in silence, a 
hard, cruel expression gleaming in his eyes; and 
curling derisively his set lips, as Becket spoke. At 
its conclusion he said harshly — 

“Stint thou, my lord, in this despiteous contest 
with our will. Out, man! what glamor hath pos- 
sessed thee? God’s truth! we did expect thou 
wouldst have hailed these tidings with joyous tone; 
and in default thou dost flout me with ‘ yea and 
nay/ and dainty squeamish scruples, like a green 


94 


The People's Martyr. 


maiden, who frowns and pouts, and bids her lover 
from her feet, and weeps for spleen should the gal- 
lant take her at her word. Of such fashion we 
doubt is this demur of thine. But rest you merry, 
for be assured this thing shall not be altered, and 
thou alone shalt fill the primate’s seat.” 

****** 

Tt was towards the close of that momentous day 
that Eustace in his accustomed duties, sought the 
private apartment of the Chancellor. 

He found him moodily pacing the chamber with 
a thoughtful and gloomy brow; but he smiled and 
extended his hand kindly on the entrance of the 
youth, whom he loved as a son. 

“ Eustace, my dear boy,” he said, “there has 
been no minute in this weary day that would serve 
to speak of thy matter with the king, whose whole 
thoughts, God wot, are fraught only with this ill- 
fared fancy of converting me — a soldier and a lay- 
man — into a bishop and a priest. But think not, 
dear Eustace, I have forgotten thee; the murder- 
ing usurper of Marconvills shall answer for his 
treason yet; the fair damsel of Couci shall be res- 
cued from his tyranny.” 

“Dear my lord, and best of fathers,” answered 
Eustace, “ I came not hither, but to speak of my 
poor self, though a vassal of Couci hath but now 
brought word that the caitiff Baron hath left Thou- 
louse, and conveyed the maiden none knows 
whither. But I will find him out, though 1 traverse 


The People's Martyr . 


95 


barefoot every rood of land in France. But let 
that pass! There’s sadness in thy looks, dear lord. 
Art spent with travel, overworn with thought? 
Can thy poor Eustace do ought to pleasure thee ? 
Sooth ly, dear lord, pardon thy boy; in truth lie 
marvels what cause of sorrow, can beset one so 
great and glorious as thou, in this supremest hour 
of thy glory, when royal Henry showers on thee 
all good gifts.” 

“Ay! ” responded Becket, “the purpose of the 
king hath indeed a fair seeming.” Then he took 
his favorite by the hand, and led him to an open 
casement, through which was visible the glory of 
the setting sun. 

The western sky was flooded with a glowing saf- 
fron radiance, melting into a pale golden yellow on 
the verge of the delicious blue clouds high over 
head. Yet on the very edge of the horizon was a 
small black speck. This gradually spread, and the 
dazzling clouds were streaked with bars of ominous 
purple. 

« Seest thou, my son ! ” exclaimed Becket, as he 
pointed to the changing clouds, “what gorgeous 
splendors attend the dying day. But look yonder, 
the small black cloud not bigger than thine out- 
spread hand. Mark you how it spreads, and 
spreads, and extinguishes the evening lustre with 
its sinister shades. It is the herald of the storm 
that shall blot out all the beauty of the sunset. 
Methinks, Eustace, this fulness of royal favor is 


96 


The People s Martyr. 


like unto the glare of yon effulgent west. Is 
the black cloud looming in the distance ? God 
knows ! God knows ! Blessed Saint Augustine, 
Apostle of England, inspire with thy wisdom 
my doubtful, anxious soul. Beata Viryine , ora 
pro me.” 






CHAPTER VIII. 
time’s changes. 

Tears have again rolled away, and the scene 
of our legend is once more transferred from the 
vineyards and myrtle groves of the sunny south 
to midwinter in England, a black and bleak Decem- 
ber night. 

Thomas a Becket prepares for the great festival 
of the Christian world in the archiepiscopal palace 
of Canterbury. He has devoted himself wholly 
to the duties of that high ecclesiastical office, which 
Henry had so obstinately imposed upon him. 

He has relinquished the lay dignity of Chan- 
cellor. He found that he could not “ serve God 
and mammon.” He could not administer to mere 
worldly affairs and fulfil the onerous duties of the 
primacy. 

His resignation of the highest of civil appoint- 
ments has given great offence to the King. He 
apprehends he has miscalculated his favorite’s am- 
bition, when he thought he would surely yield to 
all his wishes, when uniting the office of Chan- 
cellor and Archbishop he would have ruled both 
in Church and State. Becket has altogether 

9 


9 8 


The People s Martyr . 


frustrated the King’s expectations. He is no 
longer a favorite. 

He has insisted upon the resumption of lands 
alienated from his see. He has enforced reform, 
upon the dissolute clergy. Above all, he has be- 
friended the people , by obstinately opposing the 
revival of the detestable tax entitled the dan 'gelt. 
Beyond even these offences he has foiled the king 
upon that supreme point, his expected acquiescence 
in which had been Henry’s principal motive for 
forcing on him the dignity of Primate. He op- 
poses the tyrannical Plantagenet’s desire for bring- 
ing all he Church laws under the control of 
the King’s Hall, subjecting the courts of the 
archbishops and other bishops to an appeal to the 
King’s Chief Justice ; in other words, to make 
the whole goverwment of the Church depend upon 
what the King with his Council of State should 
appoint for its laws. 

The plea for open contention in the dispute re- 
specting the worthy Canon of Bedford, Philip de 
Brois, has not yet commenced; but that little speck 
of cloud, the prophetic harbinger that blurred the 
summer sunset at Cahors, gathers depth and vol- 
ume; i- is rolling upwards; it smirches the golden 
glow; it shall blot out all the glory and prosperity 
of Becket’s worldly career; it shall spread over 
him a black thick darkness, a dense and rayless 
gloom, which the sun of eternity shall alone dispel. 

For more than twelve months after he had been 


The People's Martyr . 


99 


forced by Henry into the Archbishopric, Becket 
still retained the royal favor. But even during 
that space insidious enemies were at work. Ab- 
sence is too often fatal to friendship as well 
as love. Exempt from the charm of Becket’s 
society, the warmth of Henry’s affection began to 
evaporate. Those insidious slanderers, too, the 
sycophants of the King, distorted and misrepre- 
sented every word and action of the Archbishop. 

His renunciation of the worldly parade and pomp, 
in which he had so much delighted, his mortified life, 
his abstemious diet, his dismissal of the train of 
knights and nobles by whom he had wont to sur- 
round himself, that was called sanctimonious hypoc- 
risy. His abundant charities were quoted as an 
artful means of securing the affections of the peo- 
ple; nor were his maligners, among whom Ranulf 
de Broc was one of the most conspicuous, slow to 
invent charges still more irritating to the personal 
feelings of the King, and taxed him with having 
boasted of his determination to tame the pride and 
reduce the power of Henry. On the mind of a 
prince so fierce and implacable these malignant 
intimations produced a dire effect. The first proof 
which Becket had of his own declining influence 
was in the impunity granted to the Baron Hubert 
de Marconville, who by dint of largely bribing 
Ranulf de Broc, evaded the charge of complicity 
in the murder of his brother and sister-in-law, 
brought against him by his dying retainer, Gas- 


100 


The People s Martyr . 


pard; and though the proofs of the lady’s mar- 
riage, the birth of her son, and her departure for 
England after the death of her lord, were ob- 
tained by Becket, the young Eustace still remain- 
ing a dependant on his bounty, and the felon uncle 
still held the estates. 

As for the Lady de Couci, her guardian, on the 
morning of the day succeeding that on which he 
had been defeated by Becket at the tournament of 
Cahors, had removed her from her own castle,'' and 
it was ’ reported kept her in confinement at the 
strong fortress of Marconville. The young lady 
had no near relations, and Henry did not care to 
embroil himself with the French king, by pur- 
suing Dc Marconville, since the latter openly 
boasted that, if pressed hard, he would claim to be 
a vassal of France. 

It is not to be supposed that Eustace, the ardent 
and valorous heir of Marconville, did not employ 
every effort to discover and free the wronged lady 
of his love, and to avenge the murder of his parents; 
thereby he but exposed himself ,to the chance of 
being included among the victims of the atrocious 
Hubert, and more than once he narrowly escaped 
assassination. 

Despairing and embittered, driven at last to the 
conclusion that Adeline had been murdered by 
her atrocious guardian, who concealed the crime in 
order that he might retain possession of her estates, 
Eustace returned to England at about the time 


The People's Martyr. ioi 

when his patron was growing into avowed disfavor 
with the king. 

It was, as we have said, winter — a hard bitter 
winter — when late one night in the beginning of 
December, when the wind was howling through the 
bare branches of the trees, and driving before it a 
storm of sleet ond hail, when the burghers and 
craftsmen of the good city of Canterbury nestled 
in their warm beds, and far out in the open country, 
wood, or wold, each wild animal sought its covert, 
at the drear hour which parts the night and day, 
the sound of the portal bell at the Archbishop’s 
palace was heard above the howling of the storm. 

Night and day, watch was kept at that hos- 
pitable gate, and apprehending that at that late 
hour the summons came from some unhappy 
traveller unable to obtain admission at any of the 
closed hostelries, the porter hastened to withdraw 
the heavy bolts. 

No belated burgher, or wearied peasant, or rough 
man-at-arms applied for shelter; the lamp swinging 
in the porch discovered the form of a woman, who, 
without head gear, without mantle, or warm outer 
garment to protect her from the pelting storm, lay 
stretched insensible upon the stones. 

The porter at the palace was a lay brother at the 
monastery of St. Augustine. He had a tender, 
fitful heart. He had not been in his you than 
inmate of the cloister; but sad and dispirited, had 
sought the great consolation of the religious house 


102 


The People s Martyr. 


for a heart half broken by the deaths, quickly fol- 
lowing on each other, of a faithful and beloved wife 
and an only child, a fair creature of seventeen. 

That auburn hair which veiled the recumbent 
figure, and was all wet with snow and sleet, was so 
like the locks of his dead Edith — the slender fragile 
form was so like to hers ! 

“ Oh, sweet Virgin ! Oh, blessed saints ! What 
dolorous doing has been here ? ” ejaculated the old 
man, as he raised the the swooning female, and bore 
her into the portal chamber, where he tenderly placed 
her in his own large chair before a blazing fire. 

The alarm given by the old man soon summoned 
a crowd of perssns to the portal chamber, among 
whom were indiscriminately mingled the attendants 
of the Primate and the servants of the abbey. 

“ Good lack, reverend sir,” said the porter to the 
Infirmarian, as that officer approached, “ 1 fear me 
this poor damsel is not merely swooning, but 
already dead. Of a surety, some dark crime has 
been the source of her flight. See you, her wet kir- 
tle is of sendal ; her torn shoes, through which her 
feet are bleeding, are of fine leather. How should 
a damsel so attired be abroad on this bitter night?” 

“ Through the cruelty and persecution of some 
of our fiery barons or iron-handed knights, I doubt 
me not,” answered the Infirmarian. “ But her pulse 
still beats. Get me some warm wine, good Leofric; 
she swoons from cold and terror, and the fatigue 
of journeying on this wrathful night.” 





CHAPTER IX. 

THE TIGER AND THE WOLF. 

It was a custom of Becket to preside himself 
in the spiritual court, which was held at Canter- 
bury, as in other great towns; the jurisdiction of 
which spiritual court the people, as a rule, preferred 
to the violence and caprice of the royal and baro- 
nial j usticiaries. 

Little cause for marvel there was in this prefer- 
ence, for clerical judges were men of talents and 
education, and had purer notions of justice and 
equity than the fierce barons, many of whom 
could not even write their own names. 

Hence, every cause which legal ingenuity could 
connect, with the provisions of the cannons, was 
drawn before the ecclesiastical tribunals, and a 
spirit of rivalry rose between the two judicatures, 
which quickly ripened into open hostility; and 
envy of the fees, fines, and forfeitures that fell to 
the spiritual courts, prompted the conduct of the 
King, no less than his design of keeping the bishop- 
rics vacant at his pleasure, that he might pour the 
revenues into the royal treasury. 

It was the second week in January, a bright clear 


104 


The People s Martyr. 


winter morning; the ecclesistical judges, the caons, 
and other officers of the tribunals had taken their 
seats in the court, which was at that time held in 
the hall of the Archbishop’s palace, the great digni- 
tary himself presiding. 

The court on this occasion was unusually crowded, 
not only by the burghers and denizens of the ecclesi- 
astical city: kinghtly plumes 'waved, and steel hau- 
berks glistened among the throngs, who from all 
quarters of the town and environs poured towards 
the palace. More than one even of the neighbor- 
ing barons anxiously watched the proceedings of 
the day, for it had been noised abroad that a mem- 
ber of their own order was about to demand the 
restitution of the custody of a refractory ward, a 
noble damsel, who had fled from his guardianship, 
and placed herself under the protection of the Arch- 
bishop himself. 

In effect, that very morning had arrived at Can- 
terbury, a strange cavalier with a numerous retinue, 
said to be the baron whose ward had eluded his 
authority. 

A truculent-looking ruffian was the chief of this 
party, said to be the baron himself, landed only at 
Sandwich from France the night before; for from 
that country the ward had eloped. How the guar- 
dian had discovered the place where she had sought 
refuge was a matter of surmise for many, though 
by others it was stated that a certain English 
knight, who had helped her escape from her unjust 


The People's Martyr . 105 

imprisonment, had basely betrayed her because she 
declined to reward his service with her hand. 

There was a great press of the spectators when 
the court opened, and a closely-veiled lady, accom- 
panied by Dame Flintoft, the wife of a wealthy 
burgher of Canterbury, was ushered to the place as- 
signed to defendants in that court. With much 
importance and ostentation of manner the strange 
cavalier and his friends took their position as 
plaintiffs in this cause, which was essentially one 
of those usually submitted to ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
tion. 

A down looking, heavy-browed man was he who 
pleaded against the Archbishop at the prelate’s 
own judgment-seat, and the splendor of his garb, 
his hauberk of glittering mail, his embroidered sur- 
coat, and the crimson mantle, lined and trimmed 
with costly furs, neither communicated grace to 
his heavy, stalwart frame, nor mitigated the gloomy 
theatening expression of his harsh features. 

As two well-known Kentish knights appeared in 
the court in company with this person, and were, it 
was stated, prepared to support his cause, the spec- 
tators were in a perfect fever of curiosity till the 
proceedings commenced. This curiosity was soon 
gratified, for the cause was second on the list, and 
the first which claimed the attention of the court 
was speedily settled, being a dispute between 
two brothers respecting their share in the pro- 
perty of a deceased uncle, which dispute, by the 


io6 The People's Martyr. 

recommendation of the Archbishop, was amicably 
adjusted. 

When this case was disposed of, the spectators 
lent their eager attention, as the crier of the court, 
with the customary “Oyez, oyez!” the “Hear 
hear! ” of the Norman French, which has long been 
Anglicised into “ Oh yes, oh yes! ” announced to 
the Lord Archbishop himself, to the canons and 
council of the reverend and honorable court, that 
the high and mighty Knight and Baron 
Sir Hubert de Marconville Baron of Marcon- 
ville in our lady Queen Elinor’s appanage 
of Guienne, in France, and Lord Baron of Kavens- 
cliffe in England, in that province of Kent wherein 
the court was holden, did appeal to the Lord Arch* 
bishop, by every right of law and justice, that he 
should restore unto the ward and guardianship of the 
said honorable and noble Knight and Baron Hubert 
de Marconville, the Lady Adeline de Couci, a noble 
damoselle of France, who had defied the rightful 
commands, and evaded the authority of the said 
Baron, and in unmannerly and unmaidenly guise, 
had fled from his protection, and made a voyage to 
England, where, after many adventures, shaming 
her maiden and high degree, she had sought and 
obtained support and protection from the Arch- 
bishop, as the Baron de Marconville had witnesses 
to prove; but that, as he, the baron, doubted not 
that this haughty and ill-governed damsel had made 
distressful and false representations, he presented 


The People s Martyr. 107 

himself in the Archbishop’s Court, with a full confi- 
dence that the reverend lord would at once restore 
the damoselle to the guardianship of the Baron, her 
uncle, and nearest relative.” 

During this long preamble, there was in the bear- 
ing of Hubert de Marconville, but little of the de- 
corous respect befitting a suitor for paternal rights 
in an ecclesiastical court. He erected his massive 
frame to its full height, and alternately glared from 
beneath his thick grey brows, savagely, almost 
threateningly at the spectators, or defiantly at the 
Archbishop himself. 

The Archdeacon, who held the second place in the 
court, was about to reply to the Baron’s servants, 
but Becket, waving his hand for silence, himself 
made answer. 

“ Hubert de Marconville, dishonored knight, 
whose golden spurs, hadst thou thy deserts, should 
be hacked from thy heels; usurper, if not fratricide, 
falsely calling thyself Baron de Marconville, I 
doubt me if even thy effrontery would have brought 
thee here hadst thou not been encouraged thereto 
by villains yet baser, if not perhaps so wicked a3 
thyself. What either their object or yours can 
really be in this procedure, it would, I think, pass 
common sense and honesty to surmise, as your 
knavery can scarcely assume that the Church, to 
which she fled for protection, will give up this noble 
damsel to be anew defrauded and imprisoned by 
her unjust guardian.” 


io8 


The People's Martyr. 


“ The rights of a guardian are like those of a 
parent, not to be superseded even by the Church,” 
answered Hubert de Marconville, insolently. 

“ The Church, vain oppressor,” returned Becket, 
“ has power to loose even the bondage to a cruel 
and unnatural parent; and such, unhappily, in our 
fallen state, are to be found. But a higher human 
authority than even that of a parent will defeat thy 
audacious claim, even without the interference of the 
Church, in behalf of her persecuted child, Lady 
Adeline. Stand forth, Eustace de Marconville, 
rightful lord of Ravensclifle! What sayest thou to 
this bold man, who having defeated thee of thine 
heritage, would rob thee of thy wife?” 

At these words of the Prelate, Eustace stepped 
from among the crowd of persons assembled about 
the judgment seat, and led forward the veiled lady 
who had entered the court in company with Dame 
Flintoft. 

“ False and traitorous kinsman,” said the youth ? 
“ the days of thy triumph are numbered. Not 
here, in the precincts of the sanctuary, do I bid 
thee defiance; but since, like a ravening wolf, thou 
hast ventured from the concealment in which thou 
hast sheltered thine iniquities so long, and dared set 
foot on English ground, I will kneel at the foot- 
stool of the king for that right which he cannot 
deny me, the right of bidding thee to the sacred 
ordeal of battle.” 

“Baron of Marconville crosses swords only 


The People s Martyr . 1 09 

with champions of his own degree,” replied Hu- 
bert. 

“ That flimsy pretext cannot avail thee, base 
usurper! ” answered Eustace, “ for I have had mine 
accolade from a champion no less distinguished 
than the Prince Richard, and am admitted to that 
honorable degree of knighthood which thy crimes 
disgrace! ” 

Hubert de Marconville answered not to those 
words of Eustace, but turning to one of his compa- 
nions, he exclaimed, furiously — 

“Thou didst well, didst thou not, Rigineld Fitz- 
urse, after stealing the damsel, Adeline, from my 
charge, when she evaded thee in turn, to come 
cringing back to Marconville, and wile me hither 
to be bearded thus by priests and boys! ” 

Fitzurse had hitherto kept somewhat in the 
background, as if half ashamed to face the Arch- 
bishop, who, years before, had interfered to rescue 
him from the tyranny of this very Baron de Mar- 
conville, with whom he was now leagued. At 
these words of Hubert’s, however, he stepped for- 
ward, and scowling at the assembly, with an air at 
once sullen and defiant, he said — 

“We have thrown the dice, Hnbert de Marcon- 
ville, and the cast is against us! I avow, that 
though, in sooth, the lady’s beauty witched me, 
there was yet a greater spell for such an almost 
landless knight as I am, in her rich possessions, 
and that I was w T roth when she refused me the 


IIO 


The People s Martyr . 


guerdon of her hand, which I deemed well won by 
releasing her from thy tyranny. Furthermore, 
when she escaped from the dwelling of my friend, 
Ranulf de Broc, at Saltwood, and fled, at the risk 
of her life, on a night of storm, remember that I 
offered thee if thou couldst re-establish thy autho- 
rity as her guardian, and enforce her to bestow on 
me her hand, that thou shouldst still have the half 
of her estates, the whole of which will now pass 
into the possession of thy nephew! ” 

“Oh! Sir Regineld Fitzurse!” exclaimed Ade- 
line, “dost thou not shame to own in this reverend 
court, that thou didst deliver a poor maiden from 
imprisonment, not in honorable and knightly cour- 
tesy, but from a base design upon her fortune, 
which would have shamed the meanest burgher to 
contrive; thou dost well, too, by reminding me 
that it was at the peril of my life I fled on that 
stormy night from Saltwood; recreant gentleman, 
dost thou forget it was peril to mine honor 
urged that flight! A Christian damsel prefers her 
honor to her life! ” 

“It matters not!” broke in Hubert de Marcon- 
ville, with a ferocious accent, “the King will do 
me justice against thee, Adeline de Couci, and 
against this insolent high-placed primate, too; the 
time approaches, it cometh quickly, when priestly 
tyranny shall be quelled, and the hand of a noble 
heiress be the reward of a noble knight, not of the 
base protege of an insolent churchman! Lord 


The People s Martyr . 


ill 


Archbishop,” he continued, addressing himself to 
Becket, “thou wouldst do well to loose this knot thou 
hast so unwisely tied, and aid in obtaining a divorce of 
Adeline de Couci, from this husband of thy 
choosing! Remember that the hand of an heiress 
is at the disposal of her guardian or the King! ” 

“ Hubert de Marconville! ” said the Archbishop, 
sternly, “if in aught that I have done, I have in- 
fringed on the King’s authority, to the King I am 
prepared to answer. As for thee! thank us for 
the grace we render, in not obeying the apparitors 
of this court, to arrest and convey thee to prison 
for this defiant language. I promise thee, the 
Church has in this city valiant military vassals to 
defeat thy ruffian band, even though the swords of 
these recreant knights, Fitzurse and De Broc, were 
drawn in your behalf. Begone! and speak abroad 
what statements seem fit to your wickedness and 
your cunning. I also will report this matter to the 
King.” 



4 



CHAPTER X. 

THE CROWN ANT) THE CROZIER. 

A DAY AT CLARENDON. 

The 25th January 1164 is memorable in history, 
for on that day was fully inaugurated the terrific 
struggle between the Crown and Crozier, between 
the men of arms and the men of letters, which 
ended in the murder of Becket. 

No need here to detail again the oft-repeated 
story of the iniquitous Canon of Bedford, Philip de 
Brois, who, when the venerable Theobald was 
Archbishop, had been convicted and punished for 
manslaughter; to repeat how, years afterwards, a 
quarrel arose between this man and the King’s iti- 
nerant justiciary, Fitzpetre; how he was tried in 
the Spiritual Court for this new offence, and the 
heavy sentence inflicted did not satisfy the King, 
who demanded that De Brois should then be 
handed over to the Secular Courts, thus violating 
the first principle of English laws, which forbid 
that the same individual should be twice 
tried and twice punished for one and the same 
offence. 

The bishops objected to this. It was clear 


The Peoples Martyr . 1 13 

that all the immunities of the Church were to 
be attacked. Becket from the first offered a 
bold front to these innovations. The Archbishop 
of York, always his rival and enemy, proposed to 
temporize with the King, a policy which Becket 
disdained. 

Henry summoned a Council to be held at Claren- 
don, a small town near Salisbury, which Council 
consisted of the two archbishops, twelve bishops, 
and forty-three lay barons. Of this assembly 
John of Oxford, the King’s chaplain, was appoint- 
ed president. 

Heavy and anxious were the hearts of the 
people as to the new laws which the King was 
expected to propose, and their fears were not 
lessened by the fury which he exhibited because 
he had been denied to bring De Brois to a second 
trial. 

They knew well — the burghers, the craftsmen, 
and the agriculturists of those days — that a 
change, which transferred power from the Church 
to the King, would needs be a lamentable change 
for them. 

This Council was summoned at Clarendon to 
enforce what Henry called the ancient customs 
of the realm. What these customs were was not 
defined. 

The little town of Clarendon was filled with 
eager, anxious people, who poured into it from the 
adjacent city of Salisbury and the country round, 


The People s Martyr. 


1 14 

anxious to know the result of what peasant and 
burgher alike felt was a Council of vital import- 
ance to their own well-being. 

A black, bleak day it was, a fierce and bitter 
wind howling along the streets, and driving the 
country people, and the attendants of the clergy 
and barons, who were assembled for the Council, 
to the welcome shelter of the hostelries, where, 
over spiced ale or spiced wine, according to the 
capabilities of their purses, they conferred, cautious- 
ly and in whispers, each with men of his own class, 
on the probable events of the day. 

Sir Eustace de Marconville, who had now 
assumed his father’s name, was in the retinue 
of his beloved friend and patron the Arch- 
bishop, and obtained a place in the hall of the 
Council. 

A gloomy scene it was, the grey light from the 
lowering sky contending with the feeble 
rays of the lamps suspended from the roof of 
the hall. 

It was customary in a council of this kind for the 
barons to appear in robes of peace, and Eustace 
noted, not without apprehension, that on this occa- 
sion they were cased in armor. 

Gravely and silently swept in the ecclesiastics 
in their voluminous robes, and Eustace was near 
enough to the royal seat to note how the sanguine 
hue, natural to Henry’s complexion, deepened, and 
how fierce and baleful was the light that glowed in his 


The Peoples Martyr . 1 15 

eyes, how threatening the scowl that contracted his 
brow, as Thomas a Becket, whilom the chosen 
friend of his heart, the venerated councillor, 
the beloved companion, saluted him in passing to 
his seat. 

Physically, Henry did not show to advantage 
beside his former minister. The tall, stately figure 
of the Archbishop contrasted unfavorably for the 
King, with the middle stature and obesity which 
neither abstemiousness nor exercise could sufficient- 
ly reduce; and though the features of Henry were 
not without that comeliness which characterized 
more or less the whole race of Plantagenet, his 
visage was less noble and less attractive than that 
of the Archbishop, wherein the finely-cut outline 
of the Arab mingled with the calm majesty of the 
Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic race. 

A silence that was almost painful in its intensity 
succeeded when the members of the assembly had 
taken their seats. 

What was to be next?’ What in spirit and in 
deed were these customs , which were undefined, 
and to which the King required the bishops, blind- 
ly and ignorantly, to promise obedience. 

At a sign from ths sovereign, John of Oxford 
arose, and, with great intemperance of fone and 
manner, demanded if the bishops would now, as 
loyal subjects, engage to subscribe to the customs 
of the nation ? 

The insolence of this man’s demeanor awakened 


Ii6 The Peoples Martyr. 

the suspicion, while it aroused the indignation, of 
the Primate, and rising, he answered : 

“ As we know not what these customs are, I 
would fain that my lord the King would consent 
to the clause of ‘saving our order,’ allowed to the 
clergy even when swearing fealty to the throne.” 

This reasonable request transported Henry into a 
paroxysm of rage. 

“ Base traitor,” he exclaimed, starting from his 
seat, “serpent that would sting the hand that 
warmed thee ! We were well advised of this, that, 
destitute of honor or of gratitude, thou wouldst fain 
break the sceptre, and trample on the crown. 
God’s truth ! we cannot govern our realm without 
thee, has been thy boast ! We need control, thou 
hast audaciously asserted ! We shall see, traitor, 
whether we cannot govern both our kingdom and 
ourselves, when thy pride is shorn, along with the 
head, from thy shoulders; or, at best, when, in 
poverty and exile, thou wearest thy sackcloth gar- 
ment without the Primate’s costly robes above it ! ” 

“ My liege,” said Becket, “ my dear son in the 
faith, those who have made to thee such false re- 
port are no more thy friends than mine. Beloved 
and royal master, suffer not those sycophants and 
traitors to lead thee into treason towards thyself, 
to swerve from the dictates of that clear judgment 
with which thou art endowed. Seest thou not, 
royal master, that those self-seeking villains groan 
under all authority, that they long for the unbri- 


The People's Martyr . 117 

died license of Stephen’s time, whose hands were 
full all, in maintaining his own usurped power, and 
who could by no means restrain or punish injustice 
in others, when his own violence and wrong-doing 
in seizing on the royal state himself, made him, in 
his own person, the prime and chief of all offenders. 
These turbulent men writhe under your wise and 
determined rule. You have resumed the alienated 
crown lands, abolished the private mints, and issued 
a pure coinage, and, above all, demolished the 
castles, which, alas, were too often the strongholds 
of banditti. Does your grace suppose that this 
spirit of anarchy is appeased ? — it is only quiescent. 
The yoke of your regal authority is no less hateful 
than that of the Church; but the men who are ani- 
mated by these wild and fierce desires, who long for 
the renewal of licentiousness and rapine, have be- 
come sycophants for the nonce, and, with lying 
reports, foment your royal displeasure towards my- 
self ; and whatever the termination of this vexed 
question, these men will thiuk themselves the 
gainers, for they hate the clergy, and, despite their 
smooth bearing, are no great lovers of the firm 
government of your grace.” 

“ Out on thee, proud prelate,” replied Henry, 
furiously, “ of each other, evil men may speak the 
truth. In sooth, we need not reminding that we 
have taught a few of our wild nobles that, for those 
who resist its sway, our golden sceptre converts 
into an iron mace. And by God’s eyes,” he con- 


1 1 8 


The People s Martyr . 


tinued, with the blasphemous oath he was wont to 
use in moments of great excitement, “I who have 
known how to quell our Norman barons, am not 
like to be bearded by a Saxon priest ! Hath our 
rule taught submission to noble as well as serf ? 
We know it has. And that thou, audacious traitor, 
hast made boast it was thy counsels that guided 
our youth, that we could not govern our nation 
without thy help, and that thou, forsooth, wouldst 
be independent, and master over us ! Granted 
that they who thus made report of thy boasting 
were prompted by some evil purpose of their own, 
the craftiness of their tongues abates no jot the 
insolence of thine. A saving clause for thine order 
wouldst thou have? Wouldst know the letter of 
the customs to which we demand thy submission ? 
By our father’s soul, thou shalt learn full soon what 
is the surest custom to maintain our will. What, 
ho, within there ! ” 

An involuntary cry of dismay was heard in the 
assembly, when, at these words of the King, a pair 
of large folding doors, at the upper end of the hall, 
were thrown open, and discovered a body of knights 
with their swords drawn. 

“ Seest thou, my lord Archbishop,” said the 
King. “ The customs of our realm are to em- 
ploy the swords of our good knights to enforce 
obedience to our reasonable decrees, both from 
priest and layman.” 

The inferior prelates, even the lay members of 


The People s Martyr . 


n 9 

the council — the barons and knights — were stricken 
dumb with terror and amazement. Becket alone 
confronted the furious King with unblenching 
brow, and firmly, though not defiantly, made 
answer : 

“ Of a surety, our lord the King, the custom of 
the sword is ill to turn against the servants of the 
Church. Wouldst thou debase thyself, Henry 
Plantagenet, in the spirit of wrath and rapacity, to 
the level of the heathen persecutors of old ? The 
monsters, Kero and Diocletian, did no worse than 
turn the sword against the Christian priest. And 
wilt thou, the ruler of a Christian land, on whose 
brow the blessed waters of baptism have flowed — 
wilt thou for greed of gold, for that is it, oh ! King, 
that has prompted all this onset on the Church ? — 
wilt thou emulate those tyrants of ancient Rome, 
and bid to slaughter the servants of the Lord ?” 

“ We were well prepared for this !” cried Henry, 
furiously stamping his foot, and tearing at his own 
garments in the frenzy of his passion. “ But be 
thou warned, sir priest ! I am no weak and profli- 
gate boy like thy Saxon Edwy, nor am willing, like 
his brother Edgar, to suffer an insolent churchman 
to erect himself in authority over me ! So, think 
not thou to play the Dunstan ! See that you anon 
make oath, without reserve of word or thought, to 
observe the customs, or by God’s holy truth, thou 
and thy fellow bishops shall make answer with your 
blood ! ” 


120 


The People's Martyr . 


The fierce ungovernable temper of Henry broke 
out both in his voice and aspect, as he spoke thus. 
His words were faltering and husky with choler; 
his eyes were bloodshot; he wrenched at the gold 
chain he wore about his neck so violently that he 
broke the links, and as he ceased speaking, he cast 
one threatening glance over the council, and rushed 
out of the hall. 

A scene of the utmost confusion and terror en- 
sued. The lay barons implored the Archbishop to 
yield; his brethren, the bishops, daunted by the 
fury of the King, besought him to temporise, for 
their sake, if not his own. The murderous satellites 
of Henry poured into the hall, threatening with 
their naked swords. 

What Course could Becket pursue ? He alone 
stood undaunted ; his cool and firm demeanor mo- 
mentarily awed the assassins, while it exasperated 
the fears of his companions. Once only there was 
irresolution in his looks, as he glanced round the 
ball, taking cognisance anew of the bitter fact that 
his attendants were men of peace, defenceless eccle- 
siastics, and lay servants of the Church. 

Oh ! for the time when the warlike Chancellor 
had at his back three hundred gallant knights, at 
the head of whom, with his own trusty sword, he 
would have sustained a conflict with thrice that 
number; but it was gone, it was past, that day of 
worldly warlike triumph! For the steel corslet, 
and emblazoned surooat, penitential sackcloth 


The People s Martyr . 


12 1 


covered his breast; the pastoral crook, not the war- 
rior’s glave, was in his grasp ; for his valiant 
knights he looked upon a group of timid church- 
men, trembling for their lives, fearing to be slain 
like sheep in the slaughter-house, at the behest of 
a vengeful king. For himself, Becket would then 
have braved the utmost fury of his foes, heroic and 
unyielding, as he dared it in the after time, even 
unto the bloody end. 

But on the day of Clarendon he was not alone. 
That was then the bitter drop, and with a heart 
bursting with grief and indignation, he stood with 
his hands clasped on his pastoral staff, irresolute, 
for the first, last time, in all his valiant life. 

Then did two of the honorable order of Knights 
Templars, who chanced to be present, throw them- 
selves at his feet. 

“Reverend and dear lord!” they exclaimed, 
“ when aid the defenders of the Temple counsel 
cowardice or deception ? Assuredly it is wisdom 
~to~ temporise with this rash king, who, demented by 
his fury, will command a massacre, which shall 
plunge his own soul in eternal bale, and profit not 
the Church in the murder of her servants. If thou 
heedst not thine own life, reverend lord, bethink 
thee of thy companions, of thy friends; bethink 
thee of thy poor children in the Lord. If the shep- 
herds are slaughtered, who shall protect the flock? 
In pity then to thy brother bishops, to the suffering 
poor of Christ’s Church, to the frenzied king him- 


122 


The People s Martyr. 


self, exasperate him not to the commission of so 
black a crime as the murder of these reverend 
fathers and thyself ! ” 

“ Oh ! blessed saints of God ! ” ejaculated Becket, 
“pray for me in this piteous strait ! Sirs of the 
Temple, I tell you that to avert the murderous 
menace of King Henry, by a craven submission to 
his will, is to rescue the ship from the ravening 
whirlpool, and dash it to splinters on the savage 
rocks ! May God direct me, for never sure was 
man more perplexed ! My reason, my conscience 
trumpet-tongued, warn me that I should not yield ! 
Yet I dare not take the awful charge upon my soul. 
Go, then, for my spiritual children’s, and my breth- 
ren’s sake let it be even as ye counsel. Not for 
mine own sake, but for that of those here present, 
who fear the swords of yonder brave knights, I 
subscribe, unknowing of their real import, to these 
customs demanded by the King ! ” 



CHAPTER XI. 


THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 

A DAY AT NORTHAMPTON. 

Never, perhaps, was so great a man, as the most 
malignant of his modern enemies must admit 
Thomas a Becket to have been, so grievously per- 
plexed, so disturbed and at conflict in his own mind, 
as was the Primate after that memorable day, when 
the sword pointed at the throats of his episcopal 
brethren, enforced his consent to the “ Constitu- 
tions of Clarendon.” 

What, in effect, were these constitutions ? An 
impartial and learned Anglican clergyman of the 
present day tells us, taking another view of Becket’s 
character than that presented by him, whom William 
Cobbett, the ingrained Englishman, the man of the 
people, so truly entitles “ lying Hume! ” he tells us, 
this priest of the Reformed English Church, that 
“ These Constitutions of Clarendon, went to estab- 
lish the great grievance under which the Church 
had suffered in the time of Rufus and Henry the 


124 


The People's Martyr . 


First, that when bishopric, abbey, or priory should 
be vacated, it should be placed in the king’s hand, 
and should he receive the revenues, as if it had been 
a part of his own domain; that the pastors should be 
elected by him in council, by whatever councillors 
he should be pleased to call.” To consent to such 
a law was plainly to deliver up the Church, her 
goods, her chattels and estates, to the will of a des- 
pot, who might pillage and deprive it of its pastors 
and ministers without check or control. 

In fact, Henry the Second, who has been called 
“ the greatest prince of his time for wisdom, virtue, 
and abilities,” besides a few instances of shorter 
duration, held the see of Lincoln alone, in his own 
hands, for seventeen years, while his base-born son 
received the income. 

The calumniators of Becket, to the present hour, 
accused him of deceit and tergiversation; his con- 
duct was indicative of neither the one nor the other 
of these base motives; it was rather the doubt and 
hesitation of a man of great courage and compre- 
hensive intellect, the promptings of whose firm mind 
are disturbed by the conceits and apprehensions of 
others. 

On his return to Canterbury, Becket grievously 
reproached himself for having consented, even to 
save the lives of the bishops, to the iniquitous de- 
mands of Henry. He could not sufficiently condemn 
his own weakness. He interdicted himself from the 
exercise of his functions, wrote to Alexander a full 


The People s Martyr. 125 

account of the transaction, and solicited absolution 
from the pontiff. 

Henry, on his part, flattered himself with the 
hope that he should he able to extort the approba- 
tion of the “ customs,” either from the gratitude of 
Alexander, whom he had assisted in his necessities, 
or from the fears of the pontiff lest a refusal might 
add England to the nations that acknowledged the 
antipope. 

The firmness of the Pope defeated this scheme, 
and the King vowed to be revenged on the Arch- 
bishop. All his former attachment to Becket was 
now displaced by a base, malignant cunning; and 
the whole thoughts of this sagacious and highly- 
praised monarch, were occupied in accomplishing 
the ruin of a single bishop. 

The sycophants who surrounded him were not 
slow to suggest the means. By their advice, Henry 
waived all question of the “ customs,” and attacked 
his former friend with the weapons which feudal 
^jurisprudence placed at the command of a vindic- 
tive superior. 

A succession of charges, in which Becket was ac- 
cused of contempt of the King, and breach of trust 
in his office as chancellor, were prepared; and he 
was summoned to answer these charges at a great 
court in the town of Northampton. Even those 
who write in the present day, as the avowed ene- 
mies of Becket, were fain to admit that “ Henry 
appears to have acted with little magnanimity, and 


126 


The People s Martyr. 


to have resolved upon Becket’s ruin, by arising ex- 
travagant demands upon him, connected with his 
period of favor as chancellor.”* 

It was the close of the first day on which Becket 
had appeared at the King’s court at Northampton, 
in answer to the citation that had been served upon 
him. 

It was again the fall of the year, for the spring 
and the summer had led in the controversy that 
ensued on Becket’s withdrawing his assent to the 
“customs,” and in his appeal to the Pope; for com- 
munications with the seat of Christendom, were not 
speedily accomplished in those days. 

The many-colored woods were aglow with the 
October sun, and the rippling waters of the Nen 
glittered with the hue of the topaz, as the long 
lines of light touched the tiny wavelets that heaved 
and sparkled as the speckled trout sprang in sport 
to the surface of the wave, or diving down deep 
hid themselves in the sedges and weeds that lined 
its shelving banks. 

The environs of that ancient town had but little 
picturesque beauty in those days, for the country 
is somewhat flat, and the thick woods which in 
the reign of Henry the Second grew densely over 
the country, were a kind of offshoot of the mighty 
forest of Sherwood, in the adjoining shire of Not- 
tingham. 

The quaint little town was astir with the King’s 
* Vide Charles Knight’s “ History of England.” 


The People' s Martyr. 


127 


presence, and the townspeople, as at Clarendon, 
cautiously, over the ale stoup, or the wine cup, dis- 
cussed the probable results of the contest between 
the King and the great churchman, whom the peo- 
ple — that is to say the whole nation, save the rapa- 
cious nobles whose cause the King was fighting, 
along with his own — held to be very harshly used, 
inasmuch as he was being called upon to refund 
money which had been received by him in his secu- 
, lar and judicial capacity, and from all obligations 
respecting which he had been discharged at his 
. consecration as Archbishop, by the King’s own 
command. 

On the outskirts of the town sauntered two 
ruffianly -looking fellows, who might either have 
been bravos (by courtesy yclept men-at-arms) in the 
service of some marauding baron, or mere common 
banditti, who robbed and murdered on their own 
account. 

They loitered idly along the banks of the Ken, 
till they reached a spot where the pendent branches 
of a huge willow shadowed a rude stone cross, 
moss-grown and crumbling to decay. At the foot 
of this cross they rested themselves, and for some 
minutes lazily watched the long lines of light that 
streamed athwart the river, deepening to a purple 
tint, till the saffron lustre altogether melted away 
in the mists that rose from the waters. 

Fierce, sullen-looking ruffians they both were, 
their leather jerkins greased and stained with hard 


128 


The People s Martyr. 


wear, but well appointed for the desperate trade of 
either an avowed bandit, or a member of the Free 
Companions, who, associated under the banner of 
some celebrated leader, were little better than 
organised robbers. Each of these fellows wore a 
stout breast-plate and steel cap, and were armed 
with sword, dagger, and battle-axe. 

Glowering, heavy-browed ruffians they were, 
whose hard, fierce lineaments were furrowed with 
hard living and evil passions. 

A slight rustling among the underwood startled 
them from their reverie, and the instinct of the 
murderer was displayed in the simultaneous grasp 
which each man laid upon his dagger’s hilt. 

The rustling was succeeded by the melancholy 
hooting of an owl, and the ill-omened bird of 
night flitted across the underwood, and perching 
herself upon the summit of the stone cross, sat there 
flapping her wings, and glaring down with her red 
ghastly eyes at the two ruffians crouched at its 
foot. 

“A malison on the ghostly bird! ” ejaculated one 
of the men, enraged that he had been startled, “ and 
a double malison on him who appointed this spot as 
a trysting place! I like it not. Mind you not, 
Amyot, the legend of this stone cross, that in the 
time of the king’s grandsire a dire murder of a 
young Saxon maid was perpetrated here by a kins- 
man who was greedy of her land. Seeing that the 
murderer was Saxon too, he was hanged at 


The People s Martyr. 


129 


Northampton for the deed, which well I wot would 
have been rewarded not by a hempen collar,- but the 
possession of the damsel’s land, had he been of 
Norman blood! However, that has mattered little. 
Six feet of earth were all he would have claimed for 
many a long year that have come and gone! But 
they say that his spirit, and that of the murdered 
maid, haunts this spot, and I would, Amvot, 
that this Ranulf de Broc, and his employers 
- — for I ween, for as mighty as he is, there are 
in this business mightier than he— I would 
that this Norman had appointed another place 
for our meeting than here, where the soil has 
run red with Saxon blood! The more that it is at 

Saxon life he aims! ” 

“Go to, man; thou art an ass!” retorted the 
man called Amyot. “Saxon or Norman, what 
matters it to us! I, now, am of Norman blood, 
but pay me honestly for each inch of steel, and I 
would as soon drive my dagger into the heart of a 
Norman baron, as any Saxon churl among you all! 

"Go to, Giles; the trade which we ply has neither 
country nor creed; and as for ghosts, none but 
whining, pitiful fellows prate about them — those 
who think that a cast of the priest’s office and a 
dabbling in holy water will wash soul and body 
clean! Yex not thy small brain with such matters, 
Giles; and if thou art troubled with fantastical 
scruples, because, forsooth, Norman knights and 
nobles require our steel to be turned against a 


130 


The People s Martyr. 


Saxon priest, dismiss them, I pray thee, with this 
reflection, that as the Archbishop gets the upper 
hand, and escapes our practice, he would deal as 
hardly with thee as with me, albeit thou art a 
thief and a cut-throat of the true Saxon breed, and 
I a Norman! ” 

“Rather a Gascon, I think!” returned the Eng- 
lishman; “a chattering, vaporing Gascon, whose 
bragging tongue wags to as much noise and as 
little profit as a magpie’s. Be hushed, I tell thee, 
man! I will swear I heard footsteps yonder in the 
thicket! ” 

“ You heard a partridge rise from the covert, 
or a wild rabbit burrowing among the fallen 
leaves!” answered the Norman with a sneer; 
“and here, in good time,” he added, “comes the 
noble de Broc, to give us our instructions! ” 

The tall, soldierly figure of the knight Ranulf 
de Broc indeed approached the two men, dimly 
discernible in the evening mists, and so clisguised 
by an ample mantle of dark cloth, and the flapping 
felt cap that was drawn down upon his brow, that 
none save a person as intimate with him as was the 
mercenary soldier Amyot, would have recognized 
him. Though the false knight advanced cautious- 
ly, often casting a hasty glance around, as though 
he feared observers even in that lonely spot, there 
was a sound of his feet upon the seared leaves that 
carpeted the earth, and the occasional snapping of 
a twig as he put aside the pendent boughs of 


The People s Martyr . 131 

hazel and hawthorn, which, laden with brown nuts 
or scarlet berries, occasionally dashed in his face. 

The man Giles, as well as his confederate, 
imputed the sounds he . had before heard of 
rustling leaves and branches to some bird or 
wild animal, and absorbed in eager converse 
with the unworthy knight, noted not that the 
boughs of a huge blackberry bush, about a dozen 
yards distant from the old stone cross, waved 
in the stagnant fog laden air, as though a brisk 
wind had passed over them. 

Long and earnest was the speech between the 
knight and his rude confederates; cunning and 
bold alike was the scheme which demanded for its 
working out, the strong arms, it might be the 
sharp daggers, of those dour soldiers; but the con- 
ference ended with these words from the knight, 
more loudly and incautiously spoken than his pre- 
vious speech. 

u Come what will, it cannot be that peace will 
ensue between the King and this proud prelate, 
ami right grateful, no doubt, will be our loyal 
lord, to those who, unbidden, shall deal with him 
on terms it suits not either with the King’s dignity or 
wisdom to adopt! Still, the Church may not, 
with all its spiritual power, be openly assailed; 
and those at whose bidding I employ you, would 
not that our purpose be suspected, even by 
the King, for whose lawful sway we adventure it; 
therefore, I pray, keep in the outskirts of the town 


132 


The People s Martyr . 


till the hour I have named, when in the early dusk of 
these autumn nights, you shall be admitted with 
the serviceable fellows whose aid you have secured, 
at the east gate, the warder of which is a trusty 
servant of mine own! ” 

A few more words of lesser import passed 
between de Broc and his satellites; then they sepa- 
rated, the knight taking the way to the town of 
Northampton, and the two mercenaries keeping the 
path beside the river, on the banks of which, at 
about three miles distance, was a hamlet where 
they expected to find entertainment. 

Their stalwart figures were well shrouded in the 
heavy mists, when the tall, graceful person of 
Eustace de Marconville rose up from among the 
bushes wdiich had concealed him. 

“Grace of our lady! ” exclaimed the youth, “but 
this labor of espial likes me not, nathless in dealing 
with men of such metal as my kinsmen Hubert, and 
this de Broc, it needeth to be wise as the serpent 
rather than harmless as the dove; and so when, by 
chance, I overheard de Broc appoint such fellows 
to a meeting, it seemed unto me fitting to take a 
lesson even from mine old enemy of years gone by, 
x and track them on the banks of the English Nen, 
even as I and my wife were tracked by that dead 
traitor Gaspard, on the purple banks of the Lot. 
Some deadly enemy is in contrivance against my 
beloved lord and father, and mine it shall be to 
give him heedful note of it! ” 


The People's Martyr. 


133 


Eustace de Marconville hurried back to North- 
ampton; but, beloved and privileged as he was,* 
even he could not obtain access to Becket on that 
night. 

The tyrannical king, by whose express commands 
Becket had, on his consecration, been publicly re- 
lieved from all debts and responsibilities connected 
with his office as Chancellor, now fabricated a 
claim on the Archbishop for no less a sum than 
forty-four thousand marks. 



.1 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE EYE OF EXILE. 

The powerful mind and brave determination of 
Becket even, could not with its accustomed calm- 
ness sustain persecution so atrocious. 

Who shall estimate what the rack of his thoughts 
must have been on that night, when he, the firm 
and unyielding, contemplated for a brief space the 
desperate and humiliating expedient of proceeding 
barefoot to the palace, and kneeling to the King, 
suing to his oppressor for a reconciliation ? 

The dawn brought with it a determination better 
fitting his own undaunted character and the 
dignity of his office; and after saying Mass, 
he caused his lay servants and ecclesiastical at- 
tendants to assemble, and thus, attired in his epis- 
copal robes, with the mitre on his head, and 
the crozier in his hand, he proceeded to the 
palace, where the King, the barons, and the bishops 
were assembled in the great hall. 

Henry started up in a paroxysm of fury as the 
Archbishop entered with this unaccustomed pomp. 

“By our father’s soul!” he exclaimed, “the 
Archbishop has a mind to break our sceptre with 


The People s Martyr . 


135 


his pastoral staff. Up, noble barons, and maintain 
the honors of the crown, an ve would not have 
your coronets hurled into the mire. God’s truth! 
this Saxon priest, who defies his anointed King, is 
little like to venerate the belted earl. And you, 
my lords bishops, he among you who abides in the 
company of this traitor, we shall account an abet- 
tor in his treason.” 

The furious King rushed out of the hall with 
these words, and the barons, fierce and tyrannical 
as himself, and among whom were numbered many 
of those personal enemies of Becket, who had 
exasperated the quarrel, one and all obeyed the 
bidding of the King, and followed him out of the 
hall. Kor did the bishops shame to imitate their 
example. 

A tumult of angry voices, among which that of 
the King rose loudest, was heard in the adjoining 
apartment. 

The Primate, though pale and worn with the 
torturing anxieties of the previous night, alone 
preserved a firm, unmoved demeanor; while his 
clerks and attendants trembled for their own lives 
as well as his. Through the open door of the 
chamber to which Henry had betaken himself, 
snatches of the intemperate colloquy were 
overheard: 

‘‘Were not his Grace well advised to lay both 
his crown and his sceptre at the Archbishop’s 
feet ? ” sneered one courtier. 


136 


The People s Martyr. 


“ Or wear sackcloth under his royal robes, in 
imitation of the Primate’s humility ? ” cried 
another. 

“ I, for my part, were my estate such that I dared 
offer counsel to the King,” cried Kanulf de Broc, 
“ would try the temper not of the sceptre, but the 
sword, to break the crozier beneath which this 
priest would have him crouch.” 

“ By mine honor, sir knight,” cried the Earl of 
Leicester, “ I would back thy counsel, which to my 
poor unclerkly brain, seemeth the best that can be 
devised.” 

“Ay, my lord Earl!” exclaimed the King, 
“ were not our knights and barons ingrates and 
cowards; had they done us wise and valorous ser- 
vice, the ambition and insolence of this man had not 
vaulted so high.” 

“Thou dost me wrong, sir King,” answered the 
Earl, “if I am included in that reproach. I hold 
nor land nor honors by thy special favor. I ween 
I have been thy true vassal, and thou my just 
and noble suzerain. And for this man, who 
would flaunt his mitre above the crown, had I my 
will, the pointed cap should soon be empty of the 
head that fills it.” 

These words alarmed the Archbishop of York, 
albeit he was one of Becket’s most malicious foes. 
He arose from his seat, and, in some perturbation, 
exclaimed, “ Beseech you, my Lord of Leicester, 
pour not oil upon flame; the Primate does amiss, 


The People s Martyr . 137 

hut less than his life may content the justice of the 
King; the forfeiture of his dignity, the displace- 
ment from that high office which he has abused.” 

“ That we may be free to bestow it upon thee, 
perhaps,” cried t Henry. “Give ye good cheer, 
my Lord of York, thou art a thought too shrewd for 
us, and hadst thou Becket’s office, we fear might 
contract his disease of aiming to rule over our de- 
crees. Take notice, you my Lord of York, and our 
knights and nobles present, we account the Primate 
as a soul-steeped traitor, and he who speaks in his 
behalf shall die.” 

“ Mistake me not, your Grace,” returned the 
Archbishop of York, “I am no abettor either of 
Church or layman who disputes your rightful 
rule; but I am a man of peace. I mix not in 
horrors of blood, and pray of your Grace permis- 
sion to retire.” 

“ Kay, get thee gone, and thou wilt,” answered 
Henry. “We can deal with this man without thy 
help, we trow. God’s truth, but we are minded to 
have him within this hour to the block ! ” 

“ Well said, noble King ! ” cried one base cour- 
tier. 

“Will not my Lord of York stay to shrive the 
Primate ? ” exclaimed another. 

The Archbishop of York hurried out of the cham- 
ber to the outer hall, where Becket still remained. 
In Henry’s furious mood, exasperated as it was by 
his courtiers, it was certain that, if Becket’s life 


138 


The People s Martyr. 


were attacked, a general massacre of his episcopal 
brethren would ensue. 

The Archbishop of York hurried into the outer 
hall. Becket, with his pale, firm face, sat com- 
posedly among his cowering attendants, one of 
whom only among the ecclesiastics, and one of the 
laymen, were as grave and determined as himself. 

The ecclesiastic was that faithful and affection- 
ate Edward Grim, whose name is forever associated 
with that of his sainted master, and whose blood 
mingled with that of the martyr at the altar of St, 
Benet. On that day of Northampton, when the 
grand historic tragedy had advanced only to the 
second act, Edward Grim stood as resolutely beside 
the Archbishop as in that supreme hour of the 
latter time, when his arm, stretched out to arrest 
the blow directed at his beloved superior, was 
broken by the sword stroke of the savage Reginald 
Filzurse. 

When the Archbishop of York entered the hall, 
Grim’s hands were clasped, and his lips moved, as 
if in prayer; but his eyes were fixed upon the 
steady and calm front of his undaunted master. 

The attitude of Becket’s lay follower was as calm 
and determined as that of Edward Grim, but in- 
stinct of caste, which joined the hands of Grim, and 
moved his lips in prayer, took in Eustace de Mar- 
conville the threatening action of the warrior. 

His eagle eye was turned defiantly towards the 
open door of the chamber whence rung out the 


The People s Martyr. 


139 


fierce accents of the King, demented with wrath. 
Ilis martial figure was drawn to its full height, his 
lips set, and his hand laid upon the pommel of his 
sword. Had murderous violence been offered to 
Becket on that day, the sword of his foster-son had 
exacted a fearful retribution, though he had himself 
been finally overwhelmed by numbers. 

But the hour had not yet come. The gloomy 
winter night, when blood at the altar sent up its 
awful cry to the heavenly throne, slept in the black 
womb of futurity. 

In mingled grief, and anger, and terror, Roger 
the Archbishop of York, turned towards Becket, as 
he hurried through the hall, and exclaimed — 

“ Rash and unadvised, see what thine obstinacy 
hast done. Hadst thou temporized with the King, 
yielding in some sort to his demands, all had been 
well ? We had secured the rights of the Church 
at a more becoming opportunity. Now, all is lost. 
The King, distraught with rage, demands thy life. 
Flee, or thou wilt be surely slain ! ” 

“Take flight thyself, Roger, if thou dost fear,” 
answered Becket, “ I fear not.” 

“On thine own head, then, will be thy blood, 
rash brother,” answered him of York. Then, turn- 
ing to his clergy, he exclaimed, in a piteous voice, 
“ Follow me, follow me, my children ! It is not for 
ye to look upon flowing blood.” 

Then as the Archbishop of York quitted the hall, 
the Bishop of Exeter rushed from the inner cham- 


140 The People s Martyr. 

her and knelt at Becket’s feet, even as the Knights- 
Templars had done at Clarendon. 

“ Oh ! my lord, my father ! ” he exclaimed, “ have 
pity on thy brethren ! have pity on thyself ! The 
King is implacable ; he threatens the lives of all 
who dare speak a word in thy behalf. 

Becket looked at the kneeling bishop with an air 
of compassionate contempt. 

“ It needs not that thou shouldst speak a word in 
my behalf,” he answered. “ If thou dost fear the 
fury of this man, do thou flee. Of a surety, if 
thou hast fear of man, thou canst not understand 
the things that are of God.” 

The Bishop of Exeter rose from his kneeling atti- 
tude, abashed at the reproof of Becket, abashed at 
his own weakness, and indignant at the Archbishop 
who had censured it. 

But he was not alone in his pusillanimity. There 
were others baser and more cowardly than he — his 
episcopal brethren, who shamed not to sink lower 
than to the cowardice that refused to maintain the 
Primate, in his righteous opposition to the tyrant 
King, and with a strange mingling of meanness 
and effrontery, took part with the despot Planta- 
genet in the scheme for further oppressions of the 
unfortunate people in the oppression of the Church, 
their sole refuge. 

As the Bishop of Exeter rose confused and 
humiliated before the Primate, and in his own 
heart condemned himself, the doors of the King’s 


The People s Martyr. 14 1 

chamber were thrown wide open, and the whole 
body of the assembled bishops poured into the hall. 

Foremost among them was Hilary the Bishop of 
Chichester. 

This prelate was a man inferior in ability to 
Becket’s rival, the Archbishop of York; more ob- 
tuse in conscience than the Bishop of Exeter. 

There was the effrontery of a common-minded 
rival, holding a great one for once at a disadvan- 
tage, in the air with which, advancing at the head 
of other bishops, he placed himself opposite to 
Becket, and spoke in the name of his brethren. 

This man, mean and contemptible, the ready 
tool of a tyrant, hated Becket with all the active 
malevolence of a low mind. 

“You were once,” he said, “our Primate, but 
you have opposed the royal customs, the privi- 
leges of the King, and therein you have broken 
your oath of fealty. Henceforth we disclaim your 
authority; a perjured Archbishop has no right to 
our obedience. From you, then, we appeal to the 
Pope, and we summon you to answer us before 
him ! ” 

The Primate gazed upon the Bishop of Chichester, 
while he pronounced this tirade, prompted alike by 
personal envy, and a cowardly fear of the despot 
King, with a look so full of calm contempt, that 
Hilary, half abashed, spoke not further, when 
Becket answered with the simple words, “I hear !” 
but, in company with the other bishops, who had 


142 


The People's Martyr. 


made him their mouthpiece, seated himself on the 
opposite side of the hall. 

Scarce had the bishops thus ranged themselves 
in avowed hostility to their spiritual supporter, 
when, from the inner hall, issued the barons, with 
the Earl of Leicester at their head. 

In person, dress, manners, and speech, the Earl 
was an admirable type of the power which was 
opposed by the wisdom, the learning, the Christian 
humanity of Beeket. 

Tall and strong in person, harsh in features, hard 
and wiry in voice, with a heart as impenetrable as 
the steel breastplate that covered his bosom, the 
Earl was the very embodiment of brute force, a 
matchless sample of the highest order of feudal 
nobles, proud, insolent, unlettered, cruel and 
courageous. 

“ Thomas, Archbishop or Canterbury, sometime 
High Chancellor of this realm! ” he began, and his 
clear, hard voice rang with the metallic, clang of 
a trumpet through the hall, “ rise up, and hear 
the sentence which our sovereign lord, King Henry, 
in council with his barons, has pronounced upon 
thee! ” 

“ My sentence! ” exclaimed the Archbishop, rising 
indeed, but confronting the rude warrior with a calm 
majesty of demeanor that enforced silence even on 
the haughty noble. “ My sentence, dost thou 
name ? Son and Earl, hear me first. It needs not 
I should remind thee with what fidelity I have served 


The People s Martyr . 


143 


the King. Thou knowest well how averse I was to 
undertake my present office, that to pleasure our 
sovereign alone I consented to accept it; and well 
you also know, that by his express command, I was 
then declared free from all secular claims. For 
what happened, then, previous to my consecration, 
I ought not to be called on for an account, nor will 
I render one. Know, moreover, that you, the King 
himself, and the barons, are my children in God. 
Neither law nor reason allows you to judge your 
father. I refuse, therefore, to recognize your tri- 
bunal, and refer these disputes to the decision of 
the Pope: to him, the father of Christendom, I ap- 
peal, and under the protection of the Holy Catho- 
lic Church, and the Apostolic See, I now depart! ” 
To defy the Apostolic See, by offering public and 
immediate violence to its chief minister in England, 
formed no part of the design either of the Earl of 
Leicester or his master; but several of the base 
courtiers gathered up the straw from the floor, and 
twisting it into knots, hurled them at the Arch- 
bishop, and as he approached the door of the hall, 
one voice was heard to cry : “ Out on the traitor! ” 
The spirit of the valiant warrior, the brilliant 
victor of the tournament, the conqueror of Cahors, 
would not be wholly subdued in the bosom of the 
prelate, and turning sharply round, he exclaimed — 
“ Were it not that mine holy office forbids it, I 
would make answer to you, coward, with my 
sword! ” 


*44 


The People s Martyr. 


Fearing that the parasites of the King would 
proceed to acts of greater violence, the lay atten- 
dants of the Archbishop, the chief of whom was 
Eustace de Marconville, gathered closely round 
him as he passed from the hall of the palace into 
the outer court. What, then, was their dismay, 
when they found the gates of the courtyard shut? 

“Mother of mercy!” ejaculated Edward Grim, 
“ the Archbishop is a prisoner.” 

Eustace de Marconville demanded of the King’s 
porters that they should unlock the gates. 

“ Sir Knight, we dare not! ” replied the men; but 
one among them, motioning to the wall, on which 
hung a ponderous key, whispered to Eustace: 

“Yonder is the key, Sir Knight; take it in the 
name of the saints, take it; we obey our orders in 
not unlocking the gate. We were neither bidden 
to prevent your doing so, nor to offer violence to 
the holy Archbishop or his servants.” 

♦ Tt may be supposed that Estace lost not a mo- 
ment in profiting by this equivocation; but as the 
gates were thrown open, and the Archbishop and 
his attendants passed out of the dangerous precincts, 
a long, loud, joyous cry, an uproar of acclamation 
rose without, and rung in the ears of the King and 
his parasites. 

That cry arose from the crowded assemblage of 
the people, who had gathered about the gates of 
the palace, anxious for the fate of their champion. 

No steel-clad nobles, no bishops in purple and 


The People s Martyr . 


145 


pall, no silken courtiers were these who thronged 
round Becket, beseeching his blessing, kissing his 
garments, invoking for him the protection of all 
the saints; holding their little children high up 
in their arms, that they might see the People’s 
Friexd! 

There was the sturdy farmer, the thriving 
burgher, who, despite their comfortable position, 
could claim no immunity from tyrannous exaction, 
save in the protection of the Church ; there were 
the skilled artisans, whose skill had been employed 
and rewarded by the wise and munificent Chancel- 
lor; there were those whom his charity had more 
directly aided, the sick, the feeble, the aged widow, 
and the orphan child; there also were the inferior 
clergy, the poor secular priests of parishes, hard- 
working, self-sacrificing, as at the present day; 
in fine, that assemblage was compounded of all 
grades of the people. They were of the people, 
that loving throng who escorted the Archbishop to 
his lodgings, and whose joyous and affectionate ac- 
clamations exasperated almost to madness the intem- 
perate fury of the King. 




CHAPTER XIII. 

A MISTAKE. 

The malevolence of infidels and low Protestant 
writers cannot allow to the great man who fought 
the cause of the people against a despot king, even 
the praise of a generous self-sacrifice, not even at 
the moment when he fell under the swords of his 
murderers. 

Thus the mean, invidious insinuation of his great 
slanderer Hume, has been copied for the misleading 
of youth, into the widely-circulated school History 
of England, which goes by the name of “ Gold- 
smith’s,” but with which we believe the gentle- 
hearted author of the “Deserted Village” had but 
but little to do: 

“ As soon as he reached the altar, where it is 
just to think he aspired to the honor of martyrdom, 
they all fell upon him and clove his head with re- 
peated blows!” Thus quotes the above-named 
veracious history from the pages of Hume. 

As the honour of martyrdom is one which we 
cannot imagine either Mr. Hume or his copyists 
could envy, the malice of the sneer might have been 
spared. 


The People's Martyr. 1.^7 

That Beeket did not presumptuously thrust him- 
self on perishing in the cause of the Church, is, 
however, sufficiently evidenced by his flight from 
Northampton. Not only had he learned from 
Eustace de Marconville, the meeting between his 
ancient enemy Ranulf de Broc, and the two ruffians 
on the banks of the river, but he had been informed 
by another friend that Hubert of Marconville, the 
uncle of his protege, had been seen in conference 
with the Earl of Leicester, one of his most deter- 
mined foes. 

Then he yielded to the entreaties of his followers, 
and to deceive the Court spies, who were prowling 
about his lodgings, he ordered a bed to be prepared 
in the church. 

In the dead hours of the dark October night, 
three persons, habited respectively in the garb of a 
Benedictine monk, aypuhg' franklin, and ahobbler or 
foot soldier, passed the north gate of Northampton 
on foot. 

Of these companions, the monk was no less dis- 
tinguished a person than the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury; the franklin and the hobbler were his faith- 
ful clerk, Edward Grim, and his affectionate protege, 
Eustace de Marconville. 

At about the same time Ranulf deBroc admitted 
his myrmidons Giles and Amyot, at the west gate 
of the town. 

De Broc had obtained note of the Archbishop’s 
deglgii of passing the night in the church, and fore- 


148 


The People s Martyr. 


shadowing the crime of after years, he instructed 
his satellites how they should assail their victim, 
even at the foot of the altar. 

“ The Archbishop’s train,” said the knight in con- 
clusion, “remain at his lodgings; none but a few 
shavelings and neophytes will be about the church; 
I will wait near the doors, with your reward, two 
purses well filled with gold; and fleet horses with 
'which you can secure your escape, shall be kept in 
waiting at this west gate.” 

“Marry,” ejaculated the man Giles, “and it is to 
be hoped your knightship will fail us not, more 
especially in the matter of the gold. I am free to 
own it likes me not, this slaying of a churchman at 
the altar’s foot. An it were some fat burgher now, 
or dog Jew, to be eased of his money-bags, the 
deed were of another color.” 

“Go to! Giles, for a whining old woman!” ex- 
claimed the more hardened Norman. “ What recks 
it, priest or layman ? Blood is blood, friend Giles, 
if we are to be called to account for our doings. It 
is all in the way of a soldier’s trade. Besides, thou 
knowest we are both driven to our last tester, and 
the guerdon promised by this gallant knight, will 
fit us for a long revel, and leave time for repentance 
into the bargain. Repentance! well I wot it is time 
to think of that, when death, the old mower, has 
his scythe at your heels.” 

With these words Amyot overcame the hesitation 
of his more scrupulous or more superstitious com' 


The People s Martyr . 


149 


pan ion, and with Sir Ranulf de Broc some half fur- 
long in their rear, they took their way to the church, 
where they imagined the Archbishop was passing 
the night in affairs of devotion. 

Now the false knight and felon baron, the fratri- 
cide — Hubert de Marconville — was deep in the 
murderous designs of Ranulf de Broc. 

This caitiff wretch hated the Archbishop with 
all the fury of an evil and corrupt nature; and 
though, in consequence of Becket’s decreased favor 
with the King, justice had been foiled in behalf of 
Eustace, and Hubert de Marconville still had pos- 
session of the lands, which, of course, were his 
nephew’s, he hated the Primate none the less, and 
owed him a debt of vengeance, because he knew 
that the Archbishop would have visited his 
crimes with the extreme penalty which was 
their due. 

A plan had been laid between the baron and De 
Broc for the assassination of the Primate at North- 
ampton, that very night. Far mightier than these 
two villains were concerned in the scheme, of 
which, however, the King himself was wholly 
ignorant. 

The tragedy, finally enacted at Canterbury, was 
of no sudden contrivance, the actors in it only 
made the King’s intemperate speech the excuse for 
a crime which they had contemplated for years. 

The two bravos — Giles and Amyot — had been 
engaged by Ranulf de Broc and his confederates, 


The People s Martyr . 


150 

who cared not to be the actual perpetrators of the 
foul deed which they contrived. 

The more savage temperament of Hubert de Mar- 
conville, on the other hand, prompted him to be a 
witness, if not an actor, in the assassination ; and 
without communicating his intentions to his com- 
panions, he wrapped himself in a voluminous man- 
tle, and, in the shadow of the darkness, betook 
himself to the church, wherein, it was understood, 
the Archbishop would pass the night. An hour, 
perhaps, had elapsed since the Primate, with his 
faithful companions, had escaped by the north 
gate, when a great cry was heard in the streets of 
Northampton, and the scared citizens started from 
their beds, and some, looking from their casements, 
dimly in the dark autumn night, perceived two 
men, scudding* in the direction of the west gate ; 
and others of the townspeople, whose dwellings 
were near to the church, noted the retainers of va- 
rious of the nobility lodging in town, who seemed 
to have been raised up suddenly, and were seeu 
running along with torches in their hands, some 
among them adjusting their steel caps, or buckling 
the hastily-donned breastplate. 

About the doors of the church the crowd gath- 
ered ; and there, grim and ghastly in the smoky 
glare of the torches, lay the corpse of a slain 
man ; his teeth were set, his eyes wide open, and 
a strange look of horror and surprise stamped 
upon the whole countenance. 


The People's Martyr . 151 

Death had been instantaneous, for the body was 
pierced through by two long dagger-thrusts, which 
crossed each other in the murdered man’s bosom, 
showing that his assassins had beset him on either 
side, that they had attacked him simultaneously, 
and that he must have been taken by surprise, and 
when quite unaware of his danger. 

At the inquest on the following day, the body 
was sworn to as that of the Baron Hubert de Mar- 
conville, by his friends Sir Ranulf de Broc and Re- 
ginald Fitzurse. 

Those two worthies, it should be observed, had 
been among the first persons who had heard the 
alarm given by the sacristan, whose duty it was to 
watch all night in the church, and who had, he 
said, been greatly edified by the piety of the 
stranger, who, muffled in his dark mantle, had 
knelt so devoutly near the altar through the dreary 
watches of the night, and who having, as the 
sacristan supposed, concluded his pious vigil, had 
been encountered by his murderers on the very 
threshold of the sacred edifice. 

The two knights — Fitzurse and De Broc — had, 
they said, made an appointment with the de- 
ceased baron, to set out with him for the city of 
York before the break of day; and accounted for 
their being abroad at so unseasonable an hour, with 
the plea that they were proceeding to the barcn’s 
lodgings. 

They were not aware, they said, that it was his 


152 The People s Martyr . 

intention to spend the vigil of his journey in the 
church. 

“Poor, ill-fated, pious nobleman!” ejaculated 
the sacristan, when the two knights made this 
deposition before the coroner. “ Well-a-day! well- 
a-day! and he was called to his last account full 
suddenly! What then? He had spent the night 
in prayer! Got wot, in pious preparation for his 
journey with these two honorable knights! Alas! 
and alack! it was on a longer journey he was 
called. Our Lady’s grace be with him; and may 
we all be as well prepared for a sudden flitting, by 
a night of prayer, as he was!” 

The two caitiff knights could not resist exchang- 
ing a glance, full of evil intelligence, as the simple 
servant of the Church spoke thus. When they 
were free of the court, after a verdict of “ wilful 
murder” had been returned against some persons 
unknown, as they took their way arm in arm to- 
wards the king’s palace, they indulged in brutal 
laughter and profane jests upon the guileless 
sacristan. 

Suddenly, however, Fitzurse paused, and, in a 
tone made serious by one of those qualms of super- 
stition which have nothing to do with real piety, 
he exclaimed: 

“By the mass, Ranulf, though, it is no theme for 
a jest, that our honorable friend, Hubert de Mar- 
conville, should, out of pure malice and to gloat on 
the assassination of his foe the Primate, have be- 


The People s Martyr. 


153 




taken himself to the church where the cunning 
priest was not; and in his impatience to witness the 
murder, have issued, all draped in that huge 
mantle, which was like to the cloak of a trav- 
eling monk to the church doors, and so 
have been stabbed by our serviceable 
bravos in Becket’s stead. Tell me, De Broc, 
looketh not this like what Becket himself would 
call a judgment of Heaven V For, in sooth, this 
Marconville was a most pernicions villain, the 
murderer of his brother, the fraudulent holder of 
his nephew’s title and lands.” 

“Ay,” returned the hardened De Broc, “thou 
sayest true, my friend. Hubert de Marconville 
was indeed a fratricide, a plunderer of the orphan! 
Go to! he is well done with. The man had served 
our turn. He was superfluous. I am not sure but 
that the rascals Giles and Amyot, did us both good 
service in the mistake by which they slew Hubert 
de Marconville, instead of the Archbishop.” 




CHAPTER XIV. 

VISITORS AT PONTIGNY. 

The peril which he escaped by his seasonable 
flight from Northampton, was not the only one by 
which the Primate was beset; but the hour had 
not come; and after many dangers and fatigues, he 
at length arrived in France, where he was settled 
by order of the Pope, and under the protection of 
Louis, at the Abbey of Pontingny. 

Eustace de Marconville accompanied the Archbi- 
shop to France. His wife, Adeline, had been left 
at Canterbury, in the house of the good burgher 
William Flintoft, when Eustace journeyed to 
Northampton with the Primate. 

Despite the secrecy which they were fain to 
observe in their flight from England, the assassina- 
tion of the caitiff Hubert became known to the fu- 
gitives, and they justly surmised that the dagger 
strokes by which he fell had been designed for the 
Primate. 

“ My son,” said Becket to his protege, “ since 
that the usurper of thine estates has passed to a 
more awful judgment-seat than that of our earthly 
King, I deem that Henry will scarce longer deny 


The People s Martyr . 


*55 


thee justice, and it were well that thou shouldst 
abide no longer by one who is of so little advantage 
to those who love him, as myself. I warn thee, 
dear Eustace, thou art clinging to a stricken tree, 
scathed by the storm, and with the axe now laid at 
its root. Have a care for thy young wife, Eustace, 
if not for thyself. Return thou to Northampton, 
throw thyself at the feet of Henry, and claim thy 
father’s lands. In sooth, I fear that justice has 
been denied thee so long, for no other reason 
than that thou wast unto me even as a beloved 
son!” 

“ And such let me remain, even unto the end,” 
answered Eustace. “ Bid me not from thee, my 
more than father; for thou wilt therein constrain 
me to be disobedient. Thou must even consent 
that I shall accompany thee to France; for Adeline, 
she is safe in the dwelling of the worthy burgess 
Flintoft. I trow, were I myself so graceless as to 
abandon thee on this perilous journey, it would be 
cold greeting she would give me; and as to kneel- 
ing at the foot-stool of Henry, the death of my 
uncle will, I ween, in no way amend my cause with 
him. But there is a portion of my lady’s lands in 
France, which she holds as a vassal of King Louis, 
and when you are safe, dear lord, I will return to 
England, fetch my lady, and appeal to Louis for 
the justice which Henry will not render!” 

Beeket, who though he did not actually doubt 
that the Lady Adeline was safe in the home of the 


156 


The People's Martyr . 


honest burgher, felt an apprehension he could have 
scarce defined, on behalf of all those who were 
known to Henry and his parasites as his personal 
friends, sought in vain to subvert the resolution of 
Eustace who persisted in remaining the companion 
of his flight. 

After the Archbishop was settled at Pontingnv, 
Eustace, who had been most graciously received by 
the king of France, proposed to return to England 
and fetch his wife, on whose behalf, indeed, he 
shared the anxiety of the Archbishop more than he 
chose to acknowledge. One of those accidents 
which so often defeat human wisdom, prevented his 
prosecuting this intention, for he was dangerously 
wounded in defending a French baron from the 
tusks of a wild boar which had turned upon the 
hunters. By the courage and dexterity of Eustace, 
the brute was overmastered, and he won the firm 
friendship of the French peer whose life he had 
saved; but it was at heavy cost to himself, for his 
right arm was broken, and the muscles so lacerated 
that the chirurgeons feared at first that amputation 
would be necessary. 

The youth and temperate habits of Eustace saved 
him from this calamity; but his recovery was slow, 
to travel was impossible, and a winter of uncommon 
severity for France had set in before the poor 
youth was able to leave his sick-bed. 

The grateful French baron, who was high in 
favor with Louis, would fain have despatched trusty 


The People's Martyr . 


157 


messengers to escort Adeline from England; but 
Eustace declined the proposal, flattering himself 
from day to day that he would be able to undertake 
the journey. 

Then when the inclement winter set in, such 
storms raged upon the coast as rendered the shortest 
voyage dangerous with the indifferent shipping of 
those days. 

It was the beginning of February, the weather 
still stormy, but Eustace, who was pretty well re- 
covered, was preparing for a voyage to England. 

During his illness he had been the guest of the 
French baron, who had now supplied him with all 
the requisites for his journey; and all being ready, 
he betook himself to Pontingny in order to bid a 
temporary farewell to the Archbishop. 

Great was his surprise, on proceeding towards the 
monastery, to find its approaches thronged by 
groups of persons insufficiently clad, and bearing 
the appearance of travellers. Still greater was his 
surprise when, in mingling among them, he found 
they were from England. Their appearance was 
that of fugitives from some village in possession of 
a hostile army. 

Forlorn, woe-begone old men and women, ill-clad, 
weary, and prostrate, feebly tottering along. Little 
wailing children, painfully dragging after them 
their small tired feet, and with their white pitiful 
faces stained with tears, crying for hunger and cold, 
and gazing round them with that expression of fear 


i 5 8 


The People s Martyr. 


and wonder common to children in scenes of sorrow 
and discomfort, and which is so very mournful to 
behold. There were young maids hanging wearily 
on the arms of men, whose brows grew dark as 
they denounced the injustice which had included 
them in this throng of hopeless fugitives. Faint- 
ing mothers, too, there were, who pressed their 
infants to their bosoms, with love strong as death, 
that nerved their feeble arms to support their pre- 
cious burden ! 

Eustace was amazed. What meant this extraor- 
dinary spectacle ? he inquired of one of the poor 
wayfarers, to whom he tendered the support of his 
strong arm. 

Alas ! this doleful procession, numbering more 
than four hundred souls, men, women, and children, 
were English exiles, expatriated, banished from 
their native land by the royal decree. 

In our Lady’s name, sweet mother of mercy ! 
what black, unpardonable crime had these people 
committed — what heinous guilt was that for which 
the babe at the breast, the little innocent creature 
of three years old, the white-haired grandsire of 
three score, was called upon to expiate ! 

The heart of Eustace de Marconville stood still 
at the reply. 

These poor people were kinsfolk, friends, depend- 
ents of Thomas the Archbishop. They had been 
pensioners on his bounty, tenants on his estates; 
they were those whose hands had been lifted up to 


The People's Martyr. 


159 


invoke blessings on the head of the gracious and 
enlightened friend of the people ! That was their 
offence 1 They loved and venerated Thomas a 
Becket; that was their crime — that was the guilt 
which prattling, helpless childhood, and no less help- 
less age, was called on to atone ! 

Nor age, nor sex, nor rank, had served to miti- 
gate the tyrant’s revenge; the high-born and the 
lowly, the peasant and the burgher, who had been 
in any way connected with Becket, even the re- 
cipients of his bounty, were involved, with their 
wdiole families, in one promiscuous sentence of 
banishment. 

Nor did even this severity content the savage 
wrath of Henry. The ministers of his tyranny, 
when they stripped the poor sufferers of their 
goods, and turned men, women, and children, the 
sick and the hale alike, adrift and shelterless, ex- 
acted from the poor creatures an oath that they 
would visit the Archbishop in his exile at Pon- 
tingny, and make known to him what they suffered 
for his sake. 

Certainly this oath, which was wrung from the 
banished people by Henry’s own express command, 
was a refinement of cruelty not unworthy of Nero 
himself. The King knew the noble nature of the 
man whom he wronged. He had writhed under 
the consciousness, that for himself alone, Becket 
despised his malice, and exulted in the anguish 
which he knew would pierce that noble and gener- 


i6o 


The People's Martyr . 


ous heart, which had contemned all suffering for 
itself, when visited through the pain of others. 

The poverty-stricken exile, besieged in his cell 
by the sick, the suffering, the poor, who were poor 
and suffering because he had loved them, or had 
been beloved by them ! 

There was wisdom of the Evil One in this act of 
ftenry. He sent forth in that decree the arrow 
against which Becket could interpose no armor of 
resistance — the poisoned shaft must pierce him to 
the very soul. 

Dismayed, appalled by this direful news, on a 
rack of apprehension as to whether his bride Ade- 
. line, and the good burgher Flintoft and his wife 
had been included in this atrocious sentence, Eus- 
tace committed the care of the weary old man, with 
whom he had spoken, to the charge of a servant of 
his French friend, and hurried onto the monastery. 

The life which Becket led at Pontingny was not 
one of luxury, as represented by his modern ma- 
ligners; on the contrary, it was that of a severe 
recluse; he subjected his corporal frame to fasting 
and mortification, and mentally engaged himself in 
prayer and reading. 

On reaching the Abbey, Eustace found the great 
courtyard thronged with the miserable exiles — most 
of them weeping; many of them kneeling to the 
Archbishop, who had been summoned from his 
cell; and all of them protesting that but for the 
cruel oath which had been imposed upon them, 


The People s Martyr, 161 

they would have borne their misfortunes without 
aggravating those which he endured, by intruding 
on his retreat 

Never had Eustace seen the Archbishop so deeply 
moved. He wrung his hands and shed tears over 
the unhappy exiles. 

“ Oh ! my children,” he exclaimed, “ this man 
hath indeed found out a cunning torture. Alas, 
and alas ! it is for my sake ye suffer, who am poor, 
and an exile like yourselves. But be of good heart, 
our Holy Father the Pope, the noble King Louis, 
the pious Queen of Sicily, will, I dare hope, listen 
to my prayer, and avert from you, poor blameless 
victims, the full measure of that suffering to which 
you have been devoted by the cruel Henry. Yet, 
alas ! ye are exiles, banished from our fair England, 
for the crime of loving me. Oh ! my children, the 
day is past when Thomas a Becket could spread a 
bounteous table for the travel-worn and hungered ; 
but the reverend Abbott of this House of Pontingny, 
will, I dare hope, provide ye with present suste- 
nence, though in sooth,” added Becket, with a sad 
smile, as he cast his eyes over the assembled crowd, 
“ the guests are many.” 

“ But neither bread nor meat will fail at Pon- 
tingny for their refreshment, my good lord and 
father,” said the Abbot, who had come out with 
Becket, to receive the exiles, and who was little less 
moved at the sad spectacle than the Archbishop 
himself. “ But whom have we here ? ” he added, 


The People s Martyr . 


162 

as the assembled exiles made way for an elderly 
man and woman having the appearance of burghers 
who supported between them the faded, half-lifeless 
form of a young woman, who, even amid the deso- 
lation of her appearance, had the air and aspect of 
one who was gently born. “ Whom have we here ? ” 
repeated the Abbot. “ Surely this damsel is not to 
be numbered among the victims of King Henry! ” 

“ Well-a-day! my lord Abbot, would that I could 
say she was not,” exclaimed worthy William Flin- 
toft, in his broken French. Then he was about to 
address Becket, but Eustace de Marconville rushed 
forward, and, snatching the ghost-like form of 
Adeline to his bosom, besought her to look up, and 
defy the tyranny of Henry for his sake. 

The unfortunate young woman turned her eyes, 
once so brilliant and gleaming with intelligence, on 
the face of her husband, with a glassy and uncon- 
scious stare, then shook her head, and exclaimed, in 
a pitiful, wailing voice, “It slept, my baby boy! 
It slept in the bitter cold of that winter night, and 
then they took him from me! This man and wo- 
man, who say they are my friends, they have hid- 
den him ; but when Eustace comes back, he will 
help me to find his child; and when I warm him in 
my bosom, he will wake up and smile again! ” 

Eustace hung over his bride in agony, and called 
her by every endearing name. 

The Archbishop, in grief and wonder, looked in- 
quiringly at the burgher. 


The People s Martyr. 163 

“Alas, and alas! my lord!” exclaimed Flintoft, 
“ the sweet lady is distraught — has been so, since 
the woeful night when the barbarous myrmidons of 
King Henry broke into my peaceful dwelling, and 
drove me and my old wife, and the lady Adeline and 
her new-born babe, out under the bitter winter sky! 
True, one of our fellow-townsmen, who was not in- 
cluded in that cruel proscription, at peril to himself, 
gave us the shelter of his roof, but the shock to the 
poor lady, and the two hours’ exposure to the bitter 
air, did the innocent babe to death; it drooped and 
perished like to a snowdrop too early blown! ” 

“Oh! my Adeline!” exclaimed Eustace. “My 
bride, my wife! Many fears have I had for thee 
and the dear babe I was never to behold ! But this is 
worse than were my direst fears! Hard-hearted 
tyrant! pernicious, cruel King! When will the* 
measure of thine iniquities be full ? Oh, what hadst 
thou done, my Adeline, to provoke such barbarous 
usage ! ” 

“ Alas, and alas! ” exclaimed the Archbishop, in a 
voice of bitter anguish, “ what indeed was the poor 
child’s fault, save that of these aged sufferers, of 
these famishing little ones. She was thine, my son, 
and thou hast loved me! For me, for me, are the 
innocent doomed, and the wrath of Henry is inven- 
tive in its malice, and pierces to my heart at last! 
When, when will he be content, and cry enough ?” 

The unfortunate Adeline had sunk in apparent 
insensibility in her husband’s arms, but as the Arch- 


The People's Martyr. v 


164 

bishop spoke in a voice of anguish such as his per- 
sonal suffering had never evoked, she unclosed her 
eyes, and a ray of intelligence dispelled for a brief 
space the fast gathering film of death! 

She looked from Eustace to the Archbishop, and 
a faint smile like a sunbeam upon snow played for 
a moment about her pale lips, 

“ I remember now ! I remember ! ” she said. 
“Weep not, dear Eustace, though we meet but 
presently to part again, I will wait thee with our 
boy in that land where we shall part no more! My 
good lord and reverend father! ” she continued, as 
Becket approached her, “give me .a blessing ere I 
die! and your holy prayers that my time of atone- 
ment may be brief, that I may join my child yonder, 
where I behold him now, through yon opening 
heaven, all robed in light, and singing, singing in 
an angel band! ” 



CHAPTER XV. 

DRAWING TO THE END. 

It was the 20th day of November, 11 70, one of 
those days when the variable nature of the English 
climate is evidenced by the gleams of sunshine 
which scatter the dim grey vapors, and give a tran- 
sient cheerfulness to the scene. 

The sun, which in the earlier part of the morn- 
ing had hung in the sky like a huge ball of copper, 
gathered strength ere noon, its rays drawing up the 
mist of fog, and converting it into a thin silvery 
vapor, that soon disappeared altogether from the 
high ground, and hovered only here and there in 
the woodland, settling about the undergrove of the 
trees, bathing the moss and ivy with a moisture 
through which their fresh green tints took a metal- 
lic lustre. Even in the wooldlands this mist did not 
rise more than breast high up the trunks of the 
giant oaks and beeches, on the topmost boughs of 
which the unwonted sunbeams streamed gloriously, 
the few seared leaves that still clung to the 
branches, or came rustling softly down in the light 
breeze, catching the hues of the ruby and topaz in 
the golden rays. 


The People s Martyr. 


1 66 

The unusual beauty of the day might have led 
the country people forth of their dwellings, had no 
event of extraordinary interest excited either their 
sympathy or curiosity. 

But it was not the bright day, the rally of nature 
ere it settled under the death darkness of the closing 
year, that set the streets of Canterbury in a commo- 
tion, that filled the little town of Sandwich with an 
eager expectant crowd, composed not only of the 
clergy, the burgesses, the farmers, gathered from 
every town and village in Kent, but equal numbers 
from the neighbouring counties, with whom were 
mingled no inconsiderable portion of the citizens of 
old London itself! 

The well-to-do people were dressed in their holi- 
day garments, but the poorest of the poor had en- 
deavored to give their rags a decent aspect. Ban- 
ners of a religious character too were carried in the 
procession, some of them daintily woven in silk, all 
of them wrought with words or emblems of welcome 
and thanksgiving. 

Those of the very poor who had been unable to 
contribute even a mite to the purchase of a banner, 
carried garlands of ivy, and some of them branches 
of holly, thickly clustered with its gay red berries. 

From whatever district these people assembled, 
they all converged towards Sandwich, and crowded 
down to the beach. 

It was about noon that a mighty cry of exultation 
arose among them, for some adventurous youths, 


The People's Martyr. 1 67 

perched upon the topmost masts of the vessels lying 
in the roadstead, shouted to those on shore, that 
“The ship, the ship of the good Archbishop was in 
sight, that in those bright sunbeams they could see 
the standard of England’s apostle, the banner of St. 
Augustine, waving at the fore, and the silver cross 
of the Archbishop glittering beside it! ” 

What a mighty acclaim then pealed up over earth, 
and sea, and sky. 

“ He comes, he comes, the friend of the people! 
He who feeds the hungry, and succors the op- 
pressed! Oh, blessed be the friend of the poor of 
Christ; blessed be he who cometh in the name of 
the Lord ! ” 

Had they not cause for acclaim, for delight, these 
poor people, who for six weary years had suffered 
in the exile of their benefactor ? 

For the whole of those six years had the avari- 
cious King and his officers consumed the revenues 
of the see of Canterbury. 

How were the tenants starved, tortured, rack- 
rented! Assuredly the middlemen of modern Ire- 
land might have taken a lesson from the oppressors 
of the people in that old time, for even he cannot 
immure burgesses and farmers in a castle dungeon, 
and subject them to physical torture. 

Alas! of those who crowded round Becket on his 
landing, how many had not a roof to shelter them 
that night, — the Martinmas rents, all wrung from 
them before the Primate’s return, their cattle driven 


1 68 


The People s Martyr . 


away, their forms ruined, and they and their child- 
ren driven forth of their once warm and pleasant 
homes! 

But they did not think of these things now, the 
poor, who crowded to welcome the Archbishop 
home. They were told that he had healed the 
quarrel with the King. 

Becket had returned; they would be repossessed 
of their farms; they had a benefactor, a friend; 
their lives, their liberties, would be secure, — Becket 
had returned, all would go right! 

And so it did, when the champion of the 
•people had sealed his faith to them with his 
blood. 

Vox populi, vox dei l If the voice of the people 
is in truth the voice of the gods, no better testimony 
is needful to crush the foul slanders with which 
Becket has been assailed, the most malignant of 
his modern enemies not disputing that he was most 
dearly loved and greeted with ecstacies of joy by 
the people, though, add these “ devil’s advocates,” 
“ none of the nobles or dignified ecclesiastics went 
to meet him.” That is to say, none of the syco- 
phants and coadjutors of Henry. 

This love of the people alone is a test of Becket’s 
character. Who were his foes? A despotic 
King, rude, rapacious nobles, rival ecclesiastics, 
envious of his position and his talents. The people 
loved him; and the great % heart of the people 
pulsed rightly. It recognized and throbbed 


The People s Martyr . 


169 


gratefully towards the man whose daring was ven- 
tured, whose misfortunes were suffered, in its cause. 
* * * * * * 

While the people were making the air ring with 
their shouts of joy at the advent of their beloved 
friend and benefactor, while mothers held their 
children high in their arms, that they might catch 
a glimpse of the Archbishop, and the moment he 
set his foot on English ground, old and young 
crowded around him, kissing his garments, kneel- 
ing for his blessing, — a scene of a far different cha- 
racter was being enacted in a strip of copse ground, 
about a mile from Sandwich. Into the covert of 
that wood had ridden at the late dawn of that winter 
morning a party of well-appointed soldiers, their 
leader being that very Ranulf de Broc, who years 
before had distinguished himself as an enemy of 
the Archbishop. 

The object of these men was to attack the Arch- 
bishop on his landing, and steal from him some 
letters of suspension or excommunication against 
the Archbishop of York, and the Bishops of 
London and Salisbury, which had been sent to him 
by the Pope, those prelates being known to have 
fostered the long and bitter quarrel between the 
Primate and the King. 

That Becket was the bearer of these letters had 
become known to the three bishops, who had as- 
sembled at Canterbury, and despatched De Broo 
on this nefarious errand. 


15 


The People s Martyr . 


170 

The work was to the man’s taste. He had been 
a sharer in the rifled revenues of the Archbishop, 
and was furious at the thought of parting with his 
plunder. 

As it was understood that the Primate purposed 
landing at Sandwich, De Broc, having ambushed 
his soldiers in the wood, despatched a scout to 
ascertain the approach of the vessel, as he cared 
not that the people, who were waiting to greet the 
arrival of Becket, should have note of any hostile 
intention towards him. 

Impatient of the delay— for he had taken up his 
position in the wood some two hours before the 
people at Sandwich sighted the Primate’s ship — 
Ranulf de Broc fumed and swore, while his men 
solaced themselves with a keg of strong waters, 
and a blazing fire, which they had kindled in the 
recesses of the wood. It was his own private 
malice De Broc had to gratify; and knowing the 
determined temper of Becket, he contemplated 
resistance, and hugged himself in the thought of 
the manner in which that resistance should be 
dealt with. 

At length, when the sunbeams had scattered the 
heavy mists, and traversed the wintry glade with 
their arrowy lustre, a hoarse cry of exultation was 
.heard, and the scout came running towards De 
Broc. This man was no other tham the ruffian 
Amyot, whom De Broc had formerly engaged to 
assassinate the Archbishop at Northampton, and 


who by mistake slew the Baron Hubert de 
Marconville. 

u He comes, sir knight, he comes!” exclaimed 
the brutal soldier; “churls and burghers, priests 
and laymen, are out by hundreds on the beach to 
meet him. What then ? Let our brave fellows 
take to horse. We will trample down the shave- 
lings, and the hen-hearted burghers like the sum- 
mer grass!” 

“Stay, Ranulf, stay!” shouted another voice, 
and from an opposite corner an armed knight came 
riding into the copse. 

It was Robert de Broc, the brother of the 
ferocious Ranulf, and the sharer in his iniquities. 

He had ridden hard; and on that winter morn 
removed his casque to wipe the heat- drops from 
his brow. His face was inflamed with anger as much 
as fatigue, and his voice shook with fury, as invok- 
ing a horrible malediction on the Archbishop, he 
exclaimed — 

“Put up your sword, Ranulf; countermarch 
your men; this pestilent Primate doth outwit us 
still! Some traitor among ourselves — may he burn 
eternally in the fires with which the priests threaten 
true men!— gave note to Becket of our intent. 
And lo you! at Whitsand, he sends on shore, with 
the letters of excommunication, our old friend 
Eustace de ^JVIarconville, now, forsooth, since our 
sharp practice robbed him of his pretty wife, a 
champion of the Temple. And not an hour since, 


172 


The People s Martyr , 


this reverend knight stalks into - our conclave at 
Canterbury, and hands to the bishops, in presence 
of fifty persons, the Pope’s letters of suspension, 
pithily remarking to the poor prelates that they 
had to thank themselves for the delivery, since, for 
the sake of peace, the Primate had resolved to sup- 
press those letters, by which resolve he had abided, 
had he not received note of their nefarious intent 
to send against him a man of ruth and rapine — 
even thyself, dear Ranulf — supported by a band of 
ruffians, to lay violent hands on him — not regarding 
his sacred office — and even rob him of the Pope’s 
letters! ” 

“ What said the Bishops ? ” cried Ranulf de 
Broc, furiously. “Was there not a soldier pre- 
sent to strike De Marconville dead for his 
daring ? ” 

“ Nay,” returned the younger De Broc, “ I swear 
to thee, Ranulf, that the discomfited looks of the 
poor prelates moved me less to anger than to mirth. 
In sooth, I cannot but admire how this Saxon 
priest outwits us all. As for De Marconville, I 
had some ado to prevent Fitzurse, whose hatred of 
him passes even thine, from assaulting him where 
he stood. But I dragged him back by main force, 
and minded him, that fraudful blow at De Marcon- 
ville must be answered for to his order, and that to 
provoke the vengeance of the whole body of the 
Templars, were worse than the wrath of the Pri- 
mate, or the Pope himself. So, in the clamor of 


The People s Martyr . 


1/3 


cries that prevailed, the movement of Fitzurse 
passed unnoticed, and he was fain to gnaw his 
fingers, and be content with what I promised him 
— a surer, because a secret, and a safe revenge some 
future day.” $ 

“By all the fiends!” ejaculated Ranulf, “weref 
Fitzurse of my mind, he would ensure this secret, 
safe revenge of thine to come off speedily.” 

“Fear not for that,” replied the craftier villain. 
“There are many of thy mind, dear brother, but 
we must give this subtle priest no further note of 
alarm, and therefore was I bidden ride at speed to 
stay thine errand at Sandwich, the purpose of which 
is foiled. The bishops have already quitted Canter- 
bury, and protest they will at once to Normandy, 
and lay their grievances before the King. De Mar- 
conville has withdrawn to the episcopal palace to 
await his patron’s arrival; and Fitzurse expects 
a conference with you at our dwelling of 
Saltwood. 




CHAPTER XVI. 

THE YIGIL OF SORROW. 

A doleful Christmas was that, the last which 
the valiant champion of religion and the liberties 
cf the people, was to pass on earth. A mission 
from the Grand Master of the Templars, to the 
chiefs of the great seat of the order in London, 
constrained Sir Eustace de Marconville to quit 
Canterbury the day after the Primate had resumed 
his ecclesiastical position. 

The deceitful promise of that fair November day 
of Becket’s landing, so unwontedly bright and 
glowing, and which was the forerunner of a season 
of exceeding gloom and severity, seemed almost 
typical of the prelate’s fortunes. The first week in 
December came a heavy snow storm, followed by 
what is called a black frost. And black, indeed, 
was that season; not a ray of sunshine, even at 
mid-day, came to light up the waste of snow that 
lay three feet deep on moor and upland, and weigh- 
ed down the strong branches of the oak and 
beech. 

All day long, bleak, bitter winds howled 
athwart the waste, and the nights were accompanied 


The People's Martyr . 


175 


by fresh descents of snow, more or less severe. 
Despite the inclement season, the Primate was 
about to pay a visit to Woodstock, the residence of 
his former pupil, Prince Henry, who had been 
crowned King by the Archbishop of York. 

The enemies of Becket — the courtiers — dreaded 
his influence over young Henry, who had been at- 
tached to him, and procured a peremptory order for 
him to confine himself to the limits of his diocese. 
He obeyed, and spent his time in prayer and the 
duties of his station. 

But the events of each day — each hour, almost — 
would have given note of his impending doom, to 
a mind less perspicuous than that of Becket. 

His foes did not disdain descending to the lowest 
and meanest acts of malignity, even to depriving him 
of the means to exercise the usual hospitalities of 
Christmas. Two days before the festival, the 
brothers De Broc, with some dozen of their satel- 
lites, set upon a party of his servants, at the head 
of whom was the good old burgher Flintoft, who 
having buried his wife in France, had entered the 
service of the Archbishop. 

The villainous De Broc had ascertained that Flin- 
toft and his companions had been sent to convey 
the Christmas provisions from Rochester to Canter- 
bury, and thereupon made an attack upon the party 
midway between the two towns, drove away the 
mules that were laden with the provisions, barbar- 
ously cut off the tail of Flintoft’s horse, and beat 




The People s Martyr . 


both him and the servants. Against the old man, 
indeed, humble as was his station, the vile De Broc 
nourished a hatred almost as malignant as that 
which he felt towards the Archbishop himself, for 
he had been the foster father of De Marconville. 
His house had sheltered Adeline de Couci when she 
fled from Saltwood, and the base De Broc could 
wreak upon the old man that revenge which he 
dared not attempt upon the knight Templar. 

So, as his party numbered three to one of the 
Archbishop’s people, the latter were easily over- 
mastered. Then the atrocious De Broc stood by, 
jeering the old man, while his two parasites, Amyot 
and Giles, beat him with cudgels. This cruelty 
was somewhat more sparingly exercised on the in- 
ferior servitors of the Archbishop, because, as De 
Broc said, he wished them to be able to carry Flin- 
toft safely to Canterbury. 

When these cruelties were accomplished, the 
knight and his followers retreated, driving away 
the mules laden with provisions, and leaving Flin- 
toft and his companions to make their way to Can- 
terbury on foot; for the amputated horse, bleeding 
and yelling with pain, lay beside the road. 

With great difficulty the servants, themselves 
sorely beaten, assisted poor Flintoft to Canterbury. | 

A sorry sight for the vigil of Christmas was the ? 
white, pitiful face of the old man, as he was borne 
into the episcopal palace. He was conveyed to his 


The People s Martyr. 


1 77 


bed, from which the apothecary of the Primate’s 
household prognosticated that he would never rise; 
and in effect, he outlived his patron but a few hours, 
dying from his wounds on the morning after the 
Archbishop was murdered. 




CHAPTER XVII. 

THE DARK DAY. 

This barbarous usage of bis humble but faithful 
friend, inspired Becket, not with fear — of that he 
was incapable— but with forebodings for himself; 
for this act of cruelty and insolence was one only 
of the many aggressions of his enemies. 

The Primate well knew how these men thirsted 
for his blood, and firmly awaited the consummation 
of their hate. 

His attached attendants, however, could not so 
calmly contemplate the peril of their beloved mas- 
ter. They bemoaned the time when the swords of 
his own valorous band of household knights, would 
have leaped from their scabbards, had danger ap- 
proached Becket within a mile. 

There were none but his lay servants, peaceful 
monks, and churchmen about him now. 

One valiant knight and man-at-arms were some- 
thing for the Archbishop; so his secretary, John 
of Salisbury, and gentle Edward Grim, took coun- 
cil together, and, unknown to Becket, they de- 
spatched a trusty messenger to London, to the 
Temple, urging Sir Eustace de Marconvillot to 




The People's Martyr. 


179 


return forthwith to Canterbury if possible, for 
that they held the life of the Archbishop to be in 
great peril. 

It was on the Monday after Christmas day that 
they despatched this messenger; but the weather 
was most severe, and at the best it was slow travel- 
ling in those days. They did not expect the return 
of their messenger before the Wednesday or Thurs- 
day, should the snow again fall. 

Dark as the deed which was to blacken its close, 
was the dawn of the memorable twenty-ninth of 
December. 

A fierce wind tore over the open country, whirled 
the frozen snow like sheets of splintered glass in the 
face of the wayfarer, bowed the tops of the giant 
oaks, and rent away the small branches, as though 
they were hazel twigs. 

In the towns, the dangers of the storm were 
scarcely less, for the savage wind, as it howled 
along the streets, damaged the gable-ends of 
houses, dislodged small pieces of masonry, and 
toppled down the chimneys on the heads of the 
passers-by. 

Anon, the gust would lull into a long, sad, wail- 
ing moan, a premonitory dirge note for him, who, 
ere the coming night should spread its raven wings, 
was to sleep at the altar’s foot in the holocaust of 
his blood. 

A dreary, dismal doy it was — lamps were burn- 
ing in the Scriptorium of the Archiepiscopal palace, 


i8o 


The People's Martyr . 


when the secretary, John of Salisbury, and Edward 
Grim, laid down their pens, and conferred anxious- 
ly. Becket was absent, standing mournfully by the 
couch of the dying Flintoft, who, sunk in the leth- 
argy of approaching death, was unconscious of 
the kindly visit of the Prelate, whose own experi- 
enced eye too truly informed him that the gentle 
spirit of his humble, faithful friend was near its 
parting flight. 

The aspect of the Archbishop was inexpressibly 
sad when he returned to the Scriptorium, and his 
voice was broken as he said, in answer to Grim’s 
inquiry as to the sick man — 

“ It is nearly over with him, Edward, in this 
world; may our sweet lady bring his soul to grace, 
and pray for me patience to submit to the Divine 
will which visits me in the ruin and death of all 
who love me. Master Gerard tells me that the old 
man will scarce live through the night, and he now 
lies in a torpor like unto death.” 

Grim sighed, but made no answer; only as the 
Archbishop turned away, and thoughtfully paced 
the apartment, he whispered to the secretary, “I 
would, John, that we had sooner sent to Sir Eu- 
stace; he can scarce yet have set out upon his 
journey.” 

But Eustace had set out; he was on his way to 
Canterbury, in company with a score of his valiant 
brethren of the Temple. 

It was about two in the afternoon. They had 


The People s Martyr. 1 8 1 

been compelled to bait their horses at Rochester. 
The grey sky was growing black, and a few 
scattered flakes of snow sifted through their bar- 
red aventayles, for the Templars were armed from 
head to heel. 

Sir Eustace de Marconville cast an anxious glance 
at the sky. “ Good lack, brother Gerald ! ” he 
said, addressing the messenger who had been sent 
to him, and who accompanied the party back to 
Canterbury, “ I fear me a dour night is coming on, 
and I would fain have been at St. Augustine’s by 
even song ; but if the snow comes down, it will de- 
lay us sorely. Nathless, the poor tired horses want 
food and rest.” 

“Nay, sir knight,” replied the lay-brother; “the 
storm, if it comes down, shall rather assure quiet 
and safety to our reverend good lord; for the De 
Brocs, I trow, are the most like to trouble him, and 
they, the godless, inebriate swashbucklers, love 
wine and wassail, and are more like to stay in their 
den of iniquities at Saltwood, and revel over the 
Christmas stores of which they plundered the Arch- 
bishop’s servants, than quit the full flagon and high 
heaped board this bitter day, to ofler him injuries 
which shall bring to them no profit.” Alas ! com- 
mon sense and common honesty alike miscalculate 
the proceedings of the wicked, whose brutal pas- 
sions often urge them on a course which certainly 
cannot profit them, and may possibly lead to their 
ruin. 


16 


182 


The People s Martyr . 


At that very time when the lay brother thus 
simply spoke so Sir Eustace de Marconville, the 
heavy tramp of mailed feet was heard in the vault- 
ed passage of the Primate’s palace, the door of the 
Scriptorium was rudely burst open, and four armed 
men strode into his presence. 

These men were Reginald Fitzurse, and his con- 
federates William Tracy, Hugh de Morville, and 
Richard Brito, names on which the doings of that 
day have bestowed an immortality of infamy. 

Fitzurse had accompanied the enraged bishops to 
Normandy; he and his companions were present 
when the king uttered that rash and passionate ex- 
clamation, which lives with the memory of the mur- 
der it instigated — ■“ Will no one free me from this 
turbulent priest ? ” 

The envenomed hatred which Fitzurse, like the 
De Brocs, had for years nursed against the man who 
had been a benefactor to himself, urged him 
greedily to snatch at the license afforded by the 
King’s words, and construe them into a warrant to 
assassinate the Primate. 

He had no difficulty in persuading the other three 
knights to join his iniquitous enterprise. The next 
day they took shipping for England; and Reginald, 
on their landing, led them to the dwelling of his 
old confederate, Ranulf de Broc, at Saltwood. 

That De Broc, who had never lost an opportunity 
to injure or malign the Archbishop, and by the 
hands of whose satellites, the poor old burgher 


The People s Martyr . 183 

Flintoft was then breathing the last sighs of a 
murdered man, that De Broe should eagerly join in 
a new attack upon Becket, may be easily under- 
stood. 

Wine and wassail, even, had less charms for him 
than a brutal revenge; nevertheless he and Fitzurse, 
with their companions, and the inferior myrmidons, 
who were summoned to arm, and accompauy them 
to the palace, quaffed deep and strong draughts, ere 
they sallied out on their murderous errand. 

The insolent manner in which they burst open the 
doors of the Scriptorium, at once aroused the indig- 
nation of the Archbishop, and he sternly demanded 
the cause of their intrusion. 

They scowled at him darkly, and seated them- 
selves without an immediate reply. Presently Fitz- 
urse, leaning on his long two-handed sword, made 
answer in a loud, threatening voice: 

“ Our errand to you, reverend lord and father, is 
in the service of the King. We are commissioned 
by his grace, to demand of you the absolution of 
the bishops, against whom you have published let- 
ters of excommunication, without his royal assent.” 

“ I had the royal assent for the publication of 
these letters,” replied the Archbishop, warmly. 
“ The case of the Archbishop of York is reserved 
for the adjudication of our Holy Father the Pope; 
for the others, I am willing to absolve them at once, 
if they will take the accustomed oath of submission 
to the decrees of the Church.” 


The People's Martyr. 


184 

“ Nay, but, my lord,” replied Fitzurse, “ thou 
must absolve them without let, or hindrance, or oath 
of any kind; and if thou refuse, take care of thine 
own reverend head, which, I promise thee, is in 
danger.” 

“ Is must a word for a dissolute soldier like unto 
thee, to address to a Prince of the Church, and his 
spiritual father ? ” answered the Archbishop. “ Till 
the bishops have made amends for their ecclesiasti- 
cal misconduct, I will not pronounce their absolution, 
though Henry himself, at the head of his armed 
barons, demanded it.” 

“Thou shalt absolve them at the demand of four 
simple knights — even myself and these my friends,” 
answered Fitzurse; “ or else, as I told thee just now, 
beware for thine own head.” 

“ If I would waver not in my resolution to pleas- 
ure the King himself,” returned the Archbishop, 
with severity, “ it is little likely I shall rescind it 
for the threat of a ferocious knight — a mere soldier 
of fortune, first fostered by mine own bounty. 
And if anything in the way of wrongdoing could sur- 
prise me, it would be, that thou, Reginald Fitzurse, 
should dare to threaten me under mine own roof.” 

“ Stay thy surpise for that, proud Prelate,” cried 
Fitzurse, in a ferocious accent; and striking his 
sword violently on the floor, u I mean not merely to 
threaten.” Then, beckoning to his companions, they 
strode out of the apartment as discourteously as 
they had entered into it. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

BLOOD AT THE ALTAR. 

The palace was by this time a scene of alarm 
and confusion. The attendants of the Archbishop 
crowded into the room with looks of dismay, im- 
ploring that he would conceal himself, as the four 
knights had made a forcible entrance into the 
palace, and had a party of armed men in the court 
below. 

“ I will not conceal myself,” answered Becket ; 
“as if I, and not this wild knight were the offen- 
der.” 

Meantime the storm raged and roared without; 
and mingled with the howling of the wind was the 
tramp of mailed feet in the courts below, and the 
sad and solemn chime of the vesper bell in the ad- 
jacent church. As the note fell upon the ear of 
John of Salisbury, it struck him that the sacred 
edifice might be a haven of security for the Arch- 
bishop, and all present united in beseeching Becket 
to repair thither. 

“ Even as you will, my children,” he answered in 
a calm but mournful voice; “but I fear me much, 
these fierce knights, who have not crossed the 


The People s Martyr. 


1 86 

threshold of a church for years, will reverence the 
altar little more than its minister.” 

Then, as he yielded to the importunity of his af- 
fectionate attendants, who, crowding round, urged 
him whether he would or no, towards the church, 
he said in a lower tone to Grim, on whose arm he 
leaned, and prefacing the words with what seemed 
an involuntary sigh, “ Be sure you give my last 
blessing, Edward, to my more than son, — to my 
dear, dear Eustace! I would that I had seen him 
once again! But God’s holy will be done! ” 

“Nay, beloved lord,” replied Grim, “you shall 
see Sir Eustace again, full many a time, and often.” 

“ Tell him,” added Becket, unheeding the words 
of the cross-bearer, “that the cloud which gathered 
at Cahors, has darkened all our English sky. See 
how black and pall-like the night comes down.” 

As the Prelate spoke, he pointed to a casement 
against the small traceried panes of which the even- 
ing sky loomed darkly. 

“ Fear not, dear lord,” replied the faithful Grim, 
moved to tears, “the black nigh^ heralds often a 
glorious day.” 

“ I do not fear,” answered the Archbishop, “ but 
my spul is heavy, and forebodes that the dawn of 
this world’s day shall break on me no more.” 

While this speech passed between Becket and 
his loving attendant, they had passed from the con- 
ventual buildings into the church. Then the clang 
of thr3 great gates reverberated under the groined 


The People s Martyr. 


187 


roof of the stately edifice, as the faithful friends of 
Becket hastily shut them, and thrust the ponderous 
bolts into the staples. 

“ What would you do, my children ? ” exclaimed 
the undaunted Prelate. “ Barricade the house of 
God! Convert the holy church into a fortress! 
Unbar and throw wide those gates, I command 
you.” 

Most unwillingly did the servants of the church 
obey this command, in which, as they feared, the 
Archbishop pronounced his own death-warrant. 

They would not disobey him; the gates were re- 
opened, and the wild winds of the black winter 
night came surging up the nave, and mingled a note 
like the wail of lamenting spirits with the voices of 
the monks, who were chanting vespers in the choir. 

The Primate had traversed the north transept, 
and was ascending the steps of the choir, as the 
solemn words; “ Dixit dominus domino meo ,” floated 
through the long aisles. The ring of metal broke 
sharply on the chant, and an uplifted sword gleamed 
in the pale rays of a lamp that swayed in the church 
porch, while beyond, the vast building was involved 
in obscurity, but half dispelled by the feeble glim- 
mer of the lamps and tapers, scattered about the 
shrines and mortuary chapels. 

Then came the tramp of mailed feet upon the 
pavement; and, dimly in the semi-darkness, the ter- 
rified ecclesiastics beheld a crowd of armed men 
rush into the church. 


188 


The People's Martyr. 


His attendants formed round the Archbishop. 

“These villains come to murder thee,” cried 
one. “ Away, dear Lord, and hide thee in the 
crypt ! ” 

“ Nay, the roof of the church is a safer place of 
concealment!” exclaimed another; “they will 
never think of searching there! ” 

Becket extricated himself from the clasp of his 
beseeching friends. 

“Save yourselves, my children,” he said, in a 
calm and steady voice, and turning to meet the 
intruders, who rushed tumultuously forward, 
crying with loud voices — “Where is he; where is 
the traitor ? ” 

To this no reply was made. 

Then Fitzurse, brandishing his naked sword, and 
eagerly scanning the obscurity, furiously demanded, 
“ Where is the Archbishop ! ” 

Upon this, Becket stepped forward, and, con- 
fronting his murderers with a dignity and calmness 
that might have awed or appeased any spirits less 
ferocious, he exclaimed: 

“Here am I, the Archbishop, but no traitor! 
Oh, Reginald! I have been thy friend, thy bene- 
factor, why dost thou come with armed men into 
my church ? If it is for my blood that you thirst, 
in the name of God, I command you, harm not any 
of my people! ” 

“ Thou art a prisoner! 59 cried Hugh of Horsea, 
seizing the prelate by the arm, who shook him off 


The People's Martyr. 189 

with so much energy that the man staggered, and 
nearly fell. Frantic with rage, he was again about 
to spring at the Archbishop, but Fitzurse, the 
leader of the assassins, drove him back. “Wilt 
thou absolve the bishops?” he cried, in a voice of 
thunder. 

“ Never, until they have offered satisfaction,” re- 
plied the indomitable Primate. 

“Then, die,” roared the furious assailant, uplift- 
ing his heavy sword, which in its descent well nigh 
broke the interposed arm of the affectionate cross- 
bearer, the only person of Becket’s attendants 
who had not, in a selfish regard to his own 
safety, fled. 

Shall we wonder at this? Was not the Divine 
Master of Becket abandoned even by the chief of 
His chosen ones, in the supreme moments of tribu- 
lation ? Was not even this abandonment of the 
undaunted martyr typical of his favor with the 
Lord, who therein vouchsafed him so especial a 
share in the burthen of His cross! 

The heart sinks, the soul revolts, at a description 
of the scene that ensued. It was a butchery, rather 
than a murder! But like a ray of soft and silvery 
lustre, illumining the scene of darkness and of 
blood, were the last words of the heroic English- 
man, as with the blood streaming from the sword- 
stroke, which had been but partially warded off by 
the self-devoted Grim, he folded his hands, and 
facing his murderers, exclaimed, “ To God, to the 


190 The People s Martyr . 

Blessed Yirgin, to the saints, the patrons of this 
church, to the martyr St. Denis, 1 commend my 
soul and the Church’s cause! ” 

The assassins were possessed of the fiends, they 
were drunk with cruelty and thirst of blood: they 
struck the Archbishop to their feet, they cleft their 
swords upon the pavement with the fury of the 
strokes that shattered his skull. 

Then Hugh of Horsea, the vilest, basest murderer 
of them all, placed his foot upon his neck, and with 
the point of his sword drew out the brain, while 
he cried in an exulting voice, “ Thus perishes a 
traitor! ” 

But the moment of triumph to the assassins com- 
menced their confusion. The bleeding corpse of 
the martyr still quivered beneath the foot of the 
murderer, the exulting cry had scarce left the mur- 
derer’s lips, when a servitor of Ranulf de Broc’s 
rushed into the church, exclaiming: 

“Save yourselves, noble knights! save yourselves, 
my comrades! The townspeople are aroused ; they 
are thronging to the church ; they have gained 
note that ye mean mischief to the Archbishop ; 
they will tear ye piecemeal when they find him 
slain! Worse than this, a body of Knights Tem- 
plars — not less than a hundred, it is said — have 
passed the city gates, led on by Sir Eustace de 
Mareonville, the Primate’s foster son. Ye will 
not be one to ten of the Templars, noble knights. 
Flee, then, if you value your lives! ” 


The People's Martyr. 1 91 

It is the peculiar attitude of cruelty to be also 
cowardly and mean. These brutal and ferocious 
murderers — from twelve to twenty of them — who 
had set upon one unarmed man, and who slew him 
at the altar’s foot, were hot, and eager, and 
trembling in their haste to preserve their own vile 
lives. With one exception they effected their 
escape. All smirched and spattered with their 
victim’s blood, they left the yet warm body 
stretched at the foot of St. Bennet’s altar. The 
faithful Grim, bleeding terribly from his 
wound, lay in a swoon at his murdered patron’s 
feet. 

The monks, the acolytes, the servitors of the 
palace were creeping out of their places of conceal- 
ment, and their doleful cry of lamentation as they 
looked upon the mangled remains of the Archbi- 
shop, struck upon the ears of' the townspeople, as 
with haggard, anxious faces, they thronged every 
doorway of the church. 

The miscreant Hugh of Horsea recoiled in abject 
terror, when he perceived the white mantle of a 
Knight Templar gleam against the dark gar- 
ments of the crowd gathered under the church 
porch. 

Unfortunately for him, the lamp, in the rays of 
which the gleaming sword of Fitzurse had first 
given note to Edward Grim of the impending tra- 
gedy, hung directly over his head. The surcoat, 
the face of the ruffian, were spotted with the mar- 


192 


The People s Martyr . 


tyr’s blood; his sword dripping with the dreadful 
stream. With cries of horror the people recoiled 
from the terrors of his countenance, blood-stained 
and flaming with direful passions. 

Then simultaneously rose the cry — 

“ The Archbishop is indeed murdered, and here 
is his assassin.” 

In vain the wretch struggled with the crowd who 
pressed upon him almost to suffocation. His head 
swam, he gasped for breath, he was powerless, his 
blood-stained weapon had been wrenched from his 
hold. Suddenly a strong hand grasped him by his 
steel gorget; he was dragged out of the crowd 
which still followed him closely, dragged up the 
nave of the church, through the north transept, to 
the foot of St. Bennet’s altar, where lay the dis- 
figured bleeding corpse, with the servitors of 
the church now kneeling, weeping and wailing 
around it. 

Hugh of Horsea vainly endeavored to wrench 
himself from the iron hand of his captor, who 
forced him to the contemplation of his own ghastly 
work. 

That captor was a tall, powerful man, with the 
rose of youth yet mantling on his cheek, with 
fierce, threatening eyes. He cast one glance at the 
mangled, bleeding form, and then turned his 
blazing eyes upon the face of the murderer, with a 
look at which he trembled. 

‘ It is true, then! I am too late!” gasped the 


The People's Martyr . 


193 


captor of Hugh of Ilorsea, who was no other than 
Eustace de Marconville. “ He is murdered ; and 
thou, wretch, art stained with a martyr’s blood. 
Most barbarous of assassins, thou at least shalt not 
escape; but the stream of thy vile life shall not 
mix with the blood of the holy and God-beloved. 
This way, wretch— this way!” 

With herculean strength the powerful young 
man dragged the murderer again to the church 
porch. Half of the crowd followed him, shouting 
and clapping their hands; the rest stayed, kneeling 
and weeping, beside the martyr’s relics. 

Forth from the church porch ; forth from the 
sacred precincts; out in the bleak roadway, with 
not a star to break with feeble ray the blackness of 
the sky, only the smoky glare of a torch, held bay 
townsman of Canterbury, to light up the ashen 
countenance of Hugh of Ilorsea, made more hideous 
by the spots of blood. 

The Templar shook him as some noble mastiff 
shakes a cringing cur. 

“Wouldst have atrial, murderer?” he cried. 
“Wouldst measure swords in self-defence with an 
honest man ? I appeal to all here present, art thou 
deserving of either grace ? By their fiat I abide. 
How say you, men of Kent? Merits the murderer 
of your Archbishop other than swift sentence and 
execution, when taken red-handed in his deed ? ” 

Eustace raised his sword, but the noble generosity 
of his nature overcame^ the first impulse of his 


194 


The People s Martyr. 


wrath. The sword of a true knight must not be 
degraded to the office of the headsman’s axe. 

He released his hold of Hugh of Horsea so sud- 
denly that the wretch staggered in the recoil. 

“ Defend thyself, monster ! ” he exclaimed, 
“either thou or I leave not this spot alive. I swear 
it, by the noble and pure soul of him whom thou 
hast murdered ! ” 

Craven for himself, Hugh of Horsea cast a wild 
glance at the enraged townspeople, but they crowd- 
ed round him — they imposed a barrier to his med- 
itated escape; and on all sides rose the terrible cry 
of “ Kill ! kill him ! ” Better fall by the sword of 
the Templar than be torn to pieces by an infuriate 
mob. Hugh of Horsea clutched at the battle-axe 
which hung at his shoulder, and put himself on his 
defence; but an abject and unwonted terror had so 
fastened on his soul, that his eye lacked its accus- 
tomed quickness, his arm its strength. At the 
second pass the knight’s sword separated the rivets 
of his gorget, and he fell back with a cry that came 
hoarsely through the blood that choked him. 

“ See the Archbishop ! keep him back ! he stands 
beside the Templar ! Keep him back ! He sets 
his foot upon my neck, and stops my breath 1 ” 




CHAPTER XIX. 

THE PENITENT IN PALESTINE. 

Years, long years have rolled away since that 
supreme moment, in which, as the history says, 
“The death of Becket was the triumph of his cause; 
and the liberties of the Church acquired new life 
and additional vigor from the blood of their cham- 
pion.” 

Neither chill England nor sunny France furnishes 
the last scene of our legend. 

We are coming to the arid mountains of Pales- 
tine — the tall palms wave in the night breeze, and 
the brilliant lustre of the orient moon pierces the 
opening of a rock-built grotto, and dims the feeble 
ray of the rude iron lamp that depends from the 
roof. 

On a couch of dry leaves in a corner of that cell, 
with a log of wood hollowed out for a pillow, is 
stretched a dying man. 

The agonies of death contract and darken a vis- 
age long made haggard and ghastly by a life of 
terrible penance. 

The frame of the dying sinner is macerated by 
fasting, it is seamed with wales from the strokes of 


196 


The People s Martyr. 


the steel scourge which lies rusted with his blood 
on the rocky flooring, and which his hand shall lift 
no more. 

A wooden drinking cup, half filled with water, 
and a morsal of coarse bread, are on a shelf, 
which also supports an iron crucifix, an hour glass, 
and the ghastly “memento mori” — a skull and 
cross-bones. 

Whatever may have been the crimes of this man, 
surely his terrific penance has been some atonement 
— must have healed in some sort the ulcers of his 
soul, and bestowed comparative peace on this his 
parting hour. It would scarcely seem so, from the 
look of anguished entreaty with which he raises 
his hollow eyes to the stern countenance of a Knight 
Templar, who stands beside him, leaning on his 
cross-handled sword. 

The dying man clasped his trembling skeleton 
hands, he feebly extends them towards the knight: 
“Beseech thee, oh, Eustace de Marconville ! ” he 
cried, “ remember, that though beside the scarlet of 
my crimes thy faults and failings white like to new- 
bleached wool, yet thou, even thou, must crave for- 
giveness when th ou comest to lie, as I do now. W as 
there not sin even in thy wrath, that our Holy 
Father the Pope forbade thee to bid to combat, as 
thou hadst bidden the wretched Hugh of Horsea ? 
Eustace de Marconville, the saint whom I crowned 
with the laurels of a martyr, never quits the man- 
sion of the blest. But thy wife, that Adeline whom 


The People's Martyr. 


1 97 


we both loved, stands ever beside me, clasping her 
boy to her bosom. Thy want of charity denies her 
rest. When thou dost pardon, she will cease to 
haunt me. Servant of the Temple, frail and erring 
mortal, remember thy frailty, thy allegiance to thy 
God, and refuse not forgiveness to a dying man.” 

The clasped hands of the penitent relaxed and 
fell stiffly by his sides ; he struggled for breath; 
and the Templar, casting away his sword, knelt 
down, raised the sufferer in his arms, and exclaimed 
eagerly — 

“ Hear me, Reginald Fitzurse, may our Blessed 
Lady, the martyr Saint Thomas, and all the saints 
witness for me before the throne of God, that I 
forgive thee as freely as I would be myself for- 
given ! ” 

* * * * * 

Not far form the doors of the Templars’ Church 
at Jerusalem, was a tombstone, on Which was carved 
the following inscription : 

“ Here lie the wretched men who martyred 
St. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury.” 

A brief space only had elapsed from the day when 
the mortal remains of Reginald Fitzurse had been 
laid in the same grave with those of the fellow- 
penitents who had preceded him, when there was a 
stately monument raised in the Temple Church at 
Jerusalem. 

That monument was erected over a valued and 


The People s Martyr. 


198 

distinguished brother of the mighty order. Sir 
Eustace de Marconville, the wealth of whose noble 
baronies of Marconville and Couci, ceded to him 
by the remorse of King Henry, after the murder of 
the Archbishop, of course became the property of 
the Knights of the Temple. 

Eustace de Marconville was the last of his race; 
and to use the simple, pathetic phrase of German 
chivalry, when the grave closed over the valiant 
but unfortunate champion of the Temple, it was 
“ Marconville ! Marconville ! and never Marconville 
any more.” 





APPENDIX. 


1. “ The Tournament at Cahors. — On the occa- 
sion of the war between Henry and Louis, the 
French King, for the possession of Thoulouse, no 
warrior was more distinguished than the Chancel- 
lor, who had engaged a body of seven hundred 
knights at his own expenSe, and marching at their 
head, was the foremost in every enterprise. Cahors 
was taken, and the army approached the walls of 
Thoulouse, when the King of France, who con- 
sidered his honor pledged to the Count de Gilles, 
threw himself, with a small force, into the city. 
Becket advised an immediate assault ; Louis would 
fall into the hands of the King ; and who could cal- 
culate the advantage to be derived from the ransom 
of so illustrious a captive ? 

“ But the ardor of the Chancellor was checked by 
the caution of Henry, who hesitated to authorize by 
his example the practice of vassals fighting against 
their lords ; and while his council deliberated, the 
French knights hastened to the assistance of Louis, 
and the golden opportunity was lost, and the En- 
glish King led back his army to Normandy. The 
Chancellor remained to secure the conquests which 
had been made. He fortified Cahors ; took three 
castles, hitherto deemed impregnable ; and tilted 


200 


Appendix. 


with a French knight, whose horse he bore off as 
the honorable proof of his victory. But his presence 
was soon required by Henry ; and having disposed 
of his household troops in different garrisons, he 
returned to Normandy at the head of twelve hun- 
dred knights, and four thousand cavalry, whom he 
had lately raised and maintained at his own charge.” 
Lingard, “ History of England.” 

2. Constitutions or Clarendon. — Mr. Charles 
Knight, in his so-called “ Popular History of Eng- 
land,” with great pretence of a liberal judgment, 
exhibits a party spirit, equally venomous and mean. 
In discussing the great question of the “ Constitu- 
tions of Clarendon,” he totally ignores the dreadful 
oppressions under which the people suffered, and 
that the Church alone was the barrier to defend 
them from the tyranny of the King and the nobles. 
We contrast his remarks not only with the history 
of Hr. Lingard, but with the observations of a 
learned Anglican clergyman, the Rev. Edward Chur- 
ton, in his work, entitled “The Early English 
Church.” In his preface to one of the later editions 
of this work, the writer observes : 

“ On other points on which some objections have 
been made, particularly the account of Archbishop 
Becket, the writer has re-examined his statements, 
and altered a few words and phrases, but he has not 
found reason to change his view of that portion or 
period of Church history. It is true the majority of 
modern English writers have judged differently, but 


A ppendix . 


201 


their judgment has been formed by an exclusive re- 
gard of the errors of the religious creed of those 
days, forgetting the errors on the other side, and 
the state of the civil government ; how all freedom 
of the subject was subverted ; justice was bought 
and sold ; and the goods of the Church made over 
to simoniac priests, or invaded, to support the 
Prince’s private prodigality. The authorities to be 
consulted are the historians of the times, and the 
existing letters of the actors in those troubled times,, 
not Lord Lyttleton’s panegyric on Henry II., or the 
sceptical philosophy and loose morality of Hume.” 
Vide “ Early English Church ,” by Edward Churton , 
31. A., Archdeacon of Cleveland. 

3. “The canons had excluded clergymen from 
judgments of blood , and the severest judgments they 
could inflict, were flagellation, fine, imprisonment, 
and degradation. It was contended that such pun- 
ishments were inadequate to the more enormous 
offences. As every individual who had been ad- 
mitted to the tonsure, whether he afterwards re- 
ceived holy orders or not, was entitled to the 
clerical privileges, we may concede that in those 
turbulent times there were many criminals among 
the clergy ; but if it were ever said that they had 
committed more than a hundred homicides in ten 
years, we must qualify our belief of the assertion, 
by recollecting the warmth of the two parties, and 
the exaggeration to which disputes give birth.’’ — 
Lingard , “ History of England.” 


202 


A ppendix. 


4. “De Brois had been sentenced by a church 
court to perpetual penance and imprisonment in a 
monastery, a kind of punishment not unlike that 
inflicted on culprits in penitentiaries. It was very 
lately practiced in Spanish monasteries, and was 
often so severe, consisting of hard fare, solitude, and 
silence, that many had thought it worse than death. 
But the King demanded that such offenders, 
whether clergy or laity, should be tried in his 
courts, and, if guilty, suffer the highest penalty of 
the law. 

“ The punishment which he required was accord- 
ing to the law of God, but it was not, as he repre- 
sented it, according to the ‘ customs of England ; * 
for the old English laws imposed this perpetual 
penance, sometimes adding banishment, but they 
left the culprit in the power of the Church. ,, — Chur - 
ton’s “ Early English Church 

5. “ Escape from Northampton. — It was generally 
believed that if the Archbishop had remained at 
Northampton, that night would have proved his 
last.” — Tide Lingard. 

6. Expatriation of Becket’s Friends. — With what 
fortitude he endured a banishment of six years in 
France, persevering in the strong resolve of a mind 
made up to abide the worst, steadfast in the midst 
of the greatest dangers, with the Pope and King of 
France now favoring him, and now deserting his 
cause, it would take too long a time to relate. One 
or two facts commonly omitted by modern his- 


A ppendix. 


203 


torians, respecting the much praised sovereign who 
drove him to seek that place of refuge, it may be 
well to mention. 

“King Henry II., provoked at the good reception 
given to Becket by the King of France, banished 
and seized on the goods of every person who was in 
any way connected with the exiled Archbishop, to 
the number of four hundred, sparing neither old 
nor young women, nor children. They flocked to 
him in great numbers at Pontingny, and their des- 
titute appearance increased his distress. He sent 
them about to different friends with letters of re- 
commendation, and they were well received by 
monasteries and by charitable persons in France, 
so that this expedient did not injure Becket so 
much, as it increased the indignation felt against the 
King. He also threatened to seize on all the 
monasteries of the Cistercians, because Becket was 
harbored at a house belonging to their order at 
Pontingny ; but the banished man, when he heard 
of it, removed to Sens.” — Churton’s “ Early English 
Church P 

7. Death of Adeline de Couci. — The incident of 
Adeline’s death is suggested by the calamitous fate 
of the wife and child of Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, 
an adherent of Queen Mary Stuart. The myrmidons 
of the Regent Murray, the bastard brother and be- 
trayer of his unfortunate sovereign, made a raid 
upon the dwelling of Bothwellhaugh on a winter 
night, burned down the mansion, and turned the 


204 


A ppendix . 


lady and her new-born babe out upon the snow- 
covered moors. The infant, of course, perished, 
and the hapless mother died a maniac. It was in 
revenge for this terrible private injury, as well as in 
the cause of his wronged queen, that Hamilton shot 
the Regent Murray. This tragic story is the theme 
of one of the finest of Sir Walter Scott’s fine bal- 
lads. 

8. Reception of Becket on his Return from Ex- 
ile. — The late laureate, Robert Southey, whose 
genius was deteriorated by the bitter spirit of Pro- 
testantism, speaks invidiously, in his “ Book of 
the Church/’ of the greeting of Becket with the 
Scriptural salutation. Mr. Churton remarks : “ As 
to the words, they were commonly used in the mid- 
dle ages as words of welcome to religious persons. 
Thus, when the French King, St. Louis, in a.d. 1249, 
took Damietta from the Saracens, the poor Christian 
slaves and captives flocked from their places of re- 
treat and met him with shouts, as he entered the 
city in procession, * Blessed is he that cometh in 
the name of the Lord.’ ” 

9. “Becket certainly rushed upon his fate. He 
had no doubt been treated with rudeness.” — Charles \ 
Knight's “ Popular History of England .” 

“The menaces of his enemies derived importance 
from each succeeding event. His provisions were 
hourly intercepted ; his property was plundered ; 
his servants beaten and insulted.” — Lingard’s “ His • 
tory of England .” 


A ppendix. 


205 


“ King Henry II., who, with his officers, had held 
the property of the See for the last six years, though 
he had made peace with Becket in July, had seized 
on all his rents due at Martinmas, and had made 
such clean work on his estates, that he found little 
but empty houses and ruined farms.” — Churtons 
“ Early English Church 

Such were the atrocities which Mr. Charles 
Knight characterizes by the lack-a-daisical expres- 
sion “ rudely treated.” 

10. “ Henry was in every mental quality of great- 
ness the superior of Becket.” — Charles Knight’s 
“ Popular History.” 

“ His passion was said to be the raving of a mad- 
man, the fury of a savage beast In its paroxysms 
his eyes were spotted with blood, his countenance 
a-flame, his tongue poured a torrent of abuse and 
imprecation ; and when, on one of these occasions, 
a page presented a letter, the king .attempted to 
tear out his eyes : nor did the boy escape without 
some scars.” Such is the report of Henry from his 
own devoted friend, Peter of Blois. With all hum- 
ble submission to sapient Charles Knight, we can- 
not concede that the unbridled savage, who was so 
thoroughly incapable of controlling himself, was 
“ the natural ruler of mankind ,” still less, “ that 
he was in every mental quality the superior of 
Becket.” 





















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